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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753444">Da Capo</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/isitandwonder/pseuds/isitandwonder'>isitandwonder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Fix it of sorts, M/M, POV First Person, POV Oliver (Call Me By Your Name), call me by your name but now all is different, what if you could go back in time to change the past?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-29 01:47:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>53,566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/isitandwonder/pseuds/isitandwonder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 2007, and Oliver is about to leave the villa once again where he spent a few days visiting Elio.<br/>Yet somehow, he's thrown 20 years back in time to suddenly find himself again in the summer of 1987.<br/>Imagine you'd get a second chance, you could go back in time and change your past. Would you do it? Do things work like that? And what's the price you'd have to pay?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>228</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay, I don't think this has been done before and I have this idea stuck in my head for some time now and it wants out.</p>
<p>This starts where the book ends and will mix book and film as I cant seperate them anymore. Yet as I still haven't read Find Me I might ignore most of it. Please don't @ me.</p>
<p>Andre Aciman created these characters and I'm just playing around with them, making them suffer.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The taxi honked for the third time, persistent.</p>
<p>„I'll email you.“ I said. „Maybe we can arrange to meet in the States next time?“ Did I sound too hopeful? Was I giving away how much I wanted to meet him again?</p>
<p>In fact, I didn't even want to leave.</p>
<p>Like the very first time.</p>
<p>Yet I had gone back to the US then, and I would now. He knew it, I saw it in his face, the slight slump of his narrow shoulders, the way he tucked a still dark curl behind his ear before pushing both hands into the pockets of his linen trousers; in the way he swayed a little towards me before pulling back, a lopsided grin on his face.</p>
<p>„That would be nice.“ He said, shrugged. „Yet with the way my mother is at the moment...“ He didn't finish the sentence, but lowered his gaze to the ground, only to look up at me through his tousled fringe when the taxi honked once more.</p>
<p>„You really should get going.“</p>
<p>„Yeah.“ </p>
<p>Our eyes locked. None of us moved.</p>
<p>„Elio-“</p>
<p>„You've got a plane to catch.“</p>
<p>„But-“</p>
<p>„It's fine.” That lopsided grin again, a bit broader this time. “Come, let me take your luggage.“ He grabbed my small trolley and pulled it over the gravel of the driveway, the stones grinding noisily together beneath the small wheels, leaving a trace I followed as if on autopilot, carrying my laptop bag in my right hand.</p>
<p>Elio was simultaneously placating my taxi driver and putting my suitcase in the car's boot when I joined them. The driver seemed agitated but Elio smiled at him and cracked a joke I didn't quite get with my still very basic Italian – something about Berlusconi that made the driver bark out a laugh and slap Elio's shoulder.</p>
<p>Somewhere down the years my shy, brooding Elio must have picked up a few soft skills, I thought, as I allowed my eyes to linger on him. Who knew when I would see him again, so I indulged while I still could.</p>
<p>He was tall and still willowy thin, his shock of almost black hair untouched by gray longer than when we first met. Yet he didn't look silly like so many middle-aged men trying too hard to conserve their youth. Elio had never been young anyway, not even as a teenager, and now he looked simply suave and elegant. Around his iridescent eyes, time had drawn a few wrinkles, presumably from laughing. The years had added a certain dignity and confidence to the way he carried himself and I had to admit that I found that almost irresistible.</p>
<p>Yet I had fallen for him once already, only barely making it out alive. I wasn't sure I'd survive a second round, so I kept my distance.</p>
<p>We were friends now, I had to remind myself, like I had done many times over the few days I'd stayed at the villa. Friends who shared a past, things that happened a lifetime ago.</p>
<p>I simply couldn't allow that past to infiltrate my presence.</p>
<p>And then Elio hugged me with one arm while holding the front door on the passenger's side, squeezing the back of my neck with his strong fingers maybe a moment longer than friends would normally do before quickly kissing my cheek.</p>
<p>„Do you have your passport?“</p>
<p>„Yes.“ I smiled, trying to hide how shaken I felt.</p>
<p>His thumb stroked my nape while he still grinned, yet there was something in his eyes that had my knees trembling: „Have a save journey.“</p>
<p>„Elio-“</p>
<p>But he had already stepped back, hands once again in his pockets, and when the driver said something to me that sounded a lot like a last call to get my American ass into his car or he would drive off without me, I obeyed him, folding myself into the sagging seat, searching in vain for a seat-belt.</p>
<p>Through the windscreen, I looked up at the villa, my heaven, my paradise, from which I was to be expelled over and over again.</p>
<p>“Linate.” I told my driver, pointing ahead.</p>
<p>The man launched into a fast Italian torrent of words, gesticulating wildly as he started the ignition of the ramshackle Fiat. It seemed to be my fate to drive around Italy in vehicles way too small for me.</p>
<p>The radio came alive, playing a song I remembered from my first summer here.</p>
<p>
  <i>Ma nemmeno un motivo</i><br/>
<i>Che io ricordi per andare via </i>
</p>
<p>I turned back as the car lurched forward, down the driveway, hoping that Elio might look at me for one last time, but he had already turned and was walking up to the villa again. Yet he raised a hand and waved casually over his shoulder.</p>
<p>I felt a lump in my throat as I tried to swallow, forcing myself to stare out onto the country road I used to ride my – or rather the late Anchise's bike – along. Nothing had changed here, I thought. Time had stood still.</p>
<p>My driver hadn't stopped talking and was now shaking a cigarette from a worn packet. I longed for one as well but didn't ask. Quitting had been too hard, yet I was momentarily tempted.</p>
<p>To distract myself from the surge, I tried to think ahead. Back in New York, Micol would be waiting for me at the airport. I would call her before boarding to make sure she knew what flight I was on. We had agreed to spend a few days in the city before going home, to visit our eldest, Alex, who was about to start his second year at Columbia.</p>
<p>Micol would drive down from Concord with Tommy, who'd just finished high-school a few weeks ago. I still remembered how grown-up he'd looked when taking his girlfriend to prom. I was sure Micol had the picture we took of him framed by now. It would stand with our other family portraits on the mantelpiece in the dining room.</p>
<p>Alex had called me just yesterday, as Elio and I had visited the bookshop in town. He'd sounded nervous. When I'd asked him about it he'd told me in an urgent tone: “I'd really like to introduce... someone to you and mom when you come visit. Just...”</p>
<p>“Just what, Alex?” I'd been browsing the poetry section of the shop, absentmindedly taking a copy of Keats from the shelf.</p>
<p>“Just promise me you won't get mad at me.”</p>
<p>“Why would I get mad at you?” I'd put the volume back, startled by my son's words.</p>
<p>“Just promise.”</p>
<p>“Okay, I promise. But I can't guarantee for your mom.”</p>
<p>His laugh had sounded forced.</p>
<p>Actually, I had my suspicion what he wanted to tell us. And how could I get mad at him for it? On the contrary, he had no idea how much I would support him. Because if my own father had done the same, I might be in a very different situation today.</p>
<p>But then I wouldn't have Alex and Tommy.</p>
<p>I'd run around this circle too often. It didn't even hurt anymore. The memory of what might have been was reduced to a mere itch by now, like an old scar you've almost forgotten and are only reminded of when the weather changed and it started throbbing; not painful, just a little irritating.</p>
<p>But listening to the song playing on the radio, driving down the once familiar roads, I wished for a split second that I could turn back the time, be 24 again, and be brave enough to not get on that train, that plane, to tell Micol the truth, to give in to Elio and get into bed with him upon my return for Christmas, where he had been waiting, naked, bathed in moonlight like a holy virgin I'd know for sure he wasn't because I had taken that from him. I'd been – and would forever be – his first.</p>
<p>No less, no more.</p>
<p>Yet how different my life could have been...</p>
<p>But would it have been better?</p>
<p>Suddenly, the driver shouted something, slamming on the brakes. I was catapulted forward, waiting for the seat-belt to catch me, preparing for the sudden stop of movement that would give me whiplash – but of course it never came. Instead, my head made contact with the windowpane, and the grinding of metal on metal was the last thing I heard before everything went dark...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>“Ah, what have we here?”</i> The voice was neither high nor low, it only sounded vaguely amused.</p>
<p><i>“A car crash.” </i>A second voice answered, much more sober, outright serious.</p>
<p><i>“I don't like accidents.”</i> The first voice sighed. <i>“So... messy.”</i></p>
<p>
  <i>“I know, you much prefer suicides.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“At least the suicides come out of their own free will.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Mostly.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“They have made a decision. They've put their life behind and are ready for the next stage.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“At least they think so.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Well, they come prepared.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“But they're always so... gloomy. One would think that as they got what they wanted they could be happy but they're always crying and lamenting and burdened with guilt...”</i>
</p>
<p>
 <i>“I still prefer them to accidents. Those are no fun either, always moping about, spending eternity sulking. They're so... boring.”</i>
 
</p>
<p>
<i>“Well, they were plugged from life without warning. They have so much unfinished business. That can spoil the mood a little.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“I guess. And this one, I mean, just look at him. He reeks of regret, chances not taken. He'll be unbearably discontented, I promise you. Another surly grumbler. As if we don't have enough of them already.” </i>The voice sighed.
</p>
<p>
<i>“It pains me but I have to agree with you.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“Now, that's a first.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“I don't like it either but... I can see what you mean. He's truly gone too soon.”</i>

<i>“Or too late. He should have killed himself years ago.”</i>
 
</p>
<p>
<i>“Now you're too harsh.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“He's been living in coma for two decades! A quick slash to his wrists, a strong rope, some pills and we'd had him when he was still enthusiastic, excitable, seeking consolation. But now he's just... numbed, jaded. Another bore.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“I wonder...”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“What?”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“Nothing.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“Oh, come on, don't nothing me here...”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“Well, usually you're the one with the anarchic ideas.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“Oh...OH!”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“But it will cost you.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“How much?”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“I decide where we put the next three.”</i>
 
</p>
<p>
 <i>“Three? Never. I grant you one-”</i>
   

</p>
<p>
 <i>“Two.”</i>
 

</p>
<p>
<i>“Deal.”</i>
   

</p>
<p>
 <i>“Okay, so, we'll drop this one back. Another one who can tell a story about a light at the end of the tunnel.”</i>
   

</p>
<p>
 <i>“I might have a better idea.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“I hate it when you have ideas.”</i>
 
</p>
<p>
<i>“This one's good, I swear.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“What is it? No, oh no... the boss would never-”</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>“She doesn't have to know.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“She knows everything! That's the whole point.”</i>
 

</p>
<p>
<i>“But I think once in a while we're allowed to have some fun.”</i>
</p>
<p>
 <i>“Fun?”</i>
 

</p>
<p>
<i>“Okay, dish out a wonder.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“That's usually her job and she's rather partial when it comes to it.”</i>
 

</p>
<p>
<i>“Too partial! I mean, look at him, he's so tall, there would be so much moping, and the way he looks, the others might think him rather dashing and would flock to him, even she might like him, and then we have another one of those situations...”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“Yeah... okay. Okay. But just this once.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“Cross my heart...”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“You died eons ago.”</i>


</p>
<p>
<i>“I can still make a promise.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“Oh, for the boss's sake... whatever. I wash my hands off it, though.”</i>

</p>
<p>
<i>“Duly noted.”</i>
</p><p>
<br/>

</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I jolt back awake. I'm somehow still in the car, and the fucking song is still playing, and the driver is still talking to me in rapid Italian.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>And then we suddenly pull to a halt.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>In front of the villa.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“What the fuck?! Linate, I have to go to Linate. Aeroporto.” I'm almost shouting.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“No, no, no. I took you from airport.” The driver's English is broken, with a heavy accent, but he keeps gesturing towards the house. “You go here.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>And then the door opens and Sami looks down on me. Sami, who had died three years ago. And he doesn't look older than the first time we met.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“You must be Oliver!” He exclaims, taking my hand and pulling me from the car. I let him, too stunned to resist.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Next to him stands Annella, beautiful Annella, smoking a cigarette.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Look at you!” Sami sounds very pleased, happy even, as he pats my shoulder.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I do, then, look down on myself. I'm wearing too short shorts and the shirt Elio had christened Billowy. Which is impossible for a number of reasons, one being that I left that garment with him precisely here 20 years ago.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“How was your journey?” Annella asks. “You must be tired.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>A bag is dropped at my feet and then the taxi drives off. I shout after it: “I need to go to the airport!”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>But Sami takes my arm. “I suppose that's the jet lag. You need a few hours of decent sleep, then food. All will be well then.” He pulls me towards the house. Annella is to my left, smiling up at me.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“You look like a cowboy.” She says.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>They lead me inside the villa. It looks exactly like I remember it. Which is not surprising, because I have just left it ten minutes ago.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>We end up in Sami's study. He gestures over to the couch but I keep standing in the middle of the room, utterly lost.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>And then he enters.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elio, my Elio, the love of my life, looking no older than 17. In a bright red polo shirt and those jeans shorts almost falling off his slim hips, short hair wild.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He extends a hand to me and I grab it as if it's a lifeline.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Elio – Oliver. Oliver – Elio.” Sami superfluously introduces us.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yeah, I know.” I say.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Do you?” Elio cocks his head, grins. The little shit grins!</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“What's going on here?” I ask. I'm not sure I like this charade.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Oliver's probably very tired. Can you take him to his room?” Annella tries to dissolve the sudden tension with practicality</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“My room?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Piccino, we talked about it.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elio rolls his eyes, picks up my holdall, and makes for the stairs.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“What the fuck!” I mutter and follow him.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>On the stairs I meet Marzia, just like 20 years ago. She doesn't look a year older either and that's when I start to really think I'm loosing it.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elio leads me to his – my – room and it looks like 20 years ago as well, with the poster of Björn Borg on the wall and even the same yellow bed sheets.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I'm reeling at this point. What the hell is happening here?</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elio is saying something but I can't hear him, my blood pounding in my ears. I sit heavily down on the bed, resting my head in my hands.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“You okay? Maybe you should lie down?” Elio suddenly asks.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He didn't ask that 20 years ago. At least I think so,</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>My head snaps up.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“What's going on here?” I bark out this time. Whatever he's playing at, this has to stop right now. It's a cruel game.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“I... I've no idea what you mean.” He pulls up his jeans and I almost laugh. “This is your room now, I'm sleeping next door-”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yeah, I know, and the bathroom is your only way out.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He looks at me as if I used an exceptionally rude expletive.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Is there a problem?” He crosses his arms over his chest, defensive.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I shake my head. “I've the feeling I've lived through all this before, you know?” I try to explain without sounding insane.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“It's called déjà vu.” </i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Smart ass.” I grin. This is so Elio...</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I get up, but instead of walking towards him to confront him, I walk over to the window, looking out over the garden.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Down on the lawn stands a small figure, thin, pale, wearing a red sundress with white polka dots, her blond hair braided into two tight pigtails.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Vimini.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>This is the moment I realize that something is really, really weird.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I pinch myself, hard, hoping to wake up.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>But Vimini is still standing in the middle of the lawn, gazing up at my window.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>And then she waves.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I have to grab the windowsill as my legs give out.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elio is suddenly behind me, muttering under his breath: “What is she doing here?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Good question.” I manage to say.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“She should be in Rome for her treatment...”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Elio!” Vimini shouts, waving some more.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Excuse me.” He's already almost out of the room when I ask him: “Elio, what date is it?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He looks at me as if I'm not a human being but some sort of amoebae. “It's June 29th, 1987.” He says before turning around, the door slamming shut behind him.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I take a few deep breaths until I slowly allow my gaze to wander the room. There's the cassette recorder I remember. The two beds. The faded postcard depicting Monet's Berm (that is currently hanging in my office in New Hampshire but which I want to give to Alex). For some reasons a pair of ski leans against the wall. I stride over to the door, open it, look into the bathroom. Green-blue tiles stare back at me and the humid air smells of Elio's honey shampoo.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I pat down my pockets next. Nothing. Open my holdall and throw its contents on the bed. Clothes. A writing pad. My old, dog-eared copy of Heraclitus' Cosmic Fragments. A plane ticket for the 19th of June 1987, JFK to Naples via London. A second ticket for my return flight in six weeks from Linate.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Where's my laptop with all my notes, my phone? I have to call Micol to tell her I will be delayed. By 20 years.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I slump down onto the floor, suddenly realizing that something very, very strange is going on.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Am I really back in 1987?</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Is this truly my second chance?</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry. So I do the next best thing. I crawl into bed and fall asleep almost instantly, smelling another smell I missed for so many years: Chamomile mixed with Elio's sweat on cotton sheets.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I don't dream. Or maybe I do. Maybe it's all a dream.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>But then the bell sounds from downstairs and Elio is standing next to my bed. His bed. Soon to be our bed.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“We're being called for dinner.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>And without hesitation, I get up. I follow Elio down the stairs and into the garden where the table under the old tree is lain with white china and antipasti. Sami is opening a bottle of frizzante and I realize I could murder for a drink.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Two glasses in, all seems better, if a little fuzzy on the edges. Mafalda serves delicious food I wolf down, praising her cooking skills until she blushes and calls me la muvi star. Sami and I are talking Heraclitus, while Annella argues with her sister. Elio just pushes the pasta around on his plate, shooting me irritated glances. Maybe because my calf is pressing against his below the table.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>We wasted so many days back then. (Now. This is so confusing.) And afterwards we wasted years. I won't allow for it to happen again. No matter what is going on, I won't miss a single day – or night – with Elio. Not a single hour. If, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I'm going to relive the summer of 1987, I will make the most of it.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I know Elio desired me from the first day we met. He told me so, later that summer. So why wait? If we only have six weeks, I want to make every day – and night – count.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Especially the nights.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I press my leg closer.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>But just before dessert, Elio excuses himself, getting up from the table. “I'm meeting friends in town.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Annella smiles at him, sucking on her cigarette. Sami nods. My calf feels suddenly cold.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He shoots me a look before leaving, eyes narrowed. I want to follow him but Sami asks me a particularly interesting question, so I answer it before excusing myself.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I meet Elio up in the bathroom where he works some product into his hair. It looked perfect before to me but now it's rather artificially disheveled.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hey, there you are.” I walk over to him, reach for him. </i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>But he sidesteps me.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“I don't know what you're thinking but this is not gonna happen.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Elio-” I have so much to say to him but suddenly I'm overwhelmed, lost for words.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“I'm... I'm not like that. And anyway, you're too old.” And he storms off, his quick steps echoing down the stairs.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I stand in the bathroom, dumbfounded.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I know he loves me, desires me, wants me.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>So why is he running?</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>I remember then that Heraclitus said no man steps into the same river twice.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Well, right now, I might have to strongly disagree.</i>
  </i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is just so much fun and I'm at home with a cold so I had time to write some more.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all the kudos and subscriptions! I'm happy this fic is appreciated - though this chapter might go into a direction not everyone of you approves.</p>
<p>Please, cut Elio some slack.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After Elio's rebuff, I can't bring myself to go back down to the living room where everyone is now presumably having drinks, so I decide to go to bed instead.</p>
<p>Undressing, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at my reflection. God, I look good! Fit. The softness around my middle is gone and I remember that back then – now – well, in 1987, I still went... go... running and swimming. Nowadays... well, in 2007, I go to yoga classes to relax and find my energy center but it's no real substitute for endurance sports.</p>
<p>I decide to go running tomorrow morning. To once again experience the freedom and happy exhaustion it provides.</p>
<p>And I will ask Elio to join me.</p>
<p>If there is a tomorrow morning here in Italy and I'm not suddenly waking up from a dream... I still can't wrap my head around what happened and how I got here but for now, I've decided to just accept my circumstances and make the most of them while I can. Overthinking won't change anything.</p>
<p>As I lie in bed, unable to fall asleep, I think of Elio. Always Elio. Where is he right now? At La Dancing? In town, eating ice-cream with his friends in one of the cafes and bars in the cathedral square? At the movies even? We never went to the cinema together. In fact, we never went on a real date.</p>
<p>But now we could. I'll make sure we will.</p>
<p>I try not to mind Elio's earlier rejection. As I remember, he'd been quite moody that summer. This summer. It had been an emotional roller-coaster with him. When we first met, he'd been quite bristle, an attempt to hide his blooming desire and affection for me because he thought it wasn't reciprocated.</p>
<p>Well, if now I show him that I'm at least as much into him as he's into me, things should speed up significantly. Right? Right! There's absolutely no need to pussyfoot around.</p>
<p>I imagine having him in this bed in 24 hours, evoking memories I've suppressed for 20 years: the silky feel of his warm skin, the hard muscles of his legs locking around my waist, his soft gasp as I push into him, swollen red lips calling me by his name... so many sensations I thought long forgotten come back to me in this room...in this bed... but something is wrong...</p>
<p>Of course! I get up again and push the two beds together. Making a point. He'll notice in the morning. That I've made room for him.</p>
<p>Afterwards, I lie awake, listening to the sounds of the villa. I love this. Love listening to the music coming from downstairs, the laughter, the faint noises from the kitchen, the wind rustling the trees outside in the garden, the old house creaking and breathing and sighing like a human being...</p>
<p>I might actually be a little afraid to go to sleep, though. What was that name of the movie in which the guy relived the same day again and again until he'd finally proven himself worthy of the female heroine? Maybe I'm trapped in something like this as well, damned to meet Elio for the first time over and over for all eternity but never to consume our union, our relationship stuck forever in its early stages...</p>
<p>Honestly, that wouldn't be much weirder than what I'm experiencing now. And probably not more frustrating than living 20 years without him.</p>
<p>And so I wait for Elio's return.</p>
<p>Which happens late, hours after my fellow occupants have gone to sleep. I can hear him use the bathroom – I left the door ajar – and then the small old bed on the other side of the wall creaks as he falls into it.</p>
<p>Only then can I finally close my eyes as well, the knowledge of Elio securely tucked in comforting me enough to  find some respite.</p>
<p>The result of my late-night musings is that I sleep in, only waking up when the sun is already high up in the sky.</p>
<p>So much for my resolution to go running.</p>
<p>Yet I'm still here, not on a plane or in a taxi again (either leaving or arriving)... I made it into a new day! That's reassuring. I will think about the wider implications of it after I had coffee. </p>
<p>I look into Elio's room in the vain hope that he overslept as well – but instead of his tousled sleepyhead only an empty unmade bed greets me.</p>
<p>So I quickly shower and notice while shaving that the glimmer of silver in my blond stubble and hair is gone. I smile at my reflection, only a little ashamed of my vanity. I look like the pivotal Golden Boy.</p>
<p>Had I truly looked like that in 1987? Well, no wonder Elio fell head over heels for me...</p>
<p>Filled with a confidence I definitely didn't experience the first time around I skip down the stairs to find the Perlmans having breakfast in the garden.</p>
<p>I've missed these Italian breakfasts so much – the fresh apricot tarte, the still warm bread, crepes, Nutella, strong espresso and soft boiled eggs.</p>
<p>I say good morning and sit down onto the sun-warmed chair, already reaching for the basket of eggs. I carefully remove the upper part of the shell with a teaspoon and dig in while Mafalda pours me a coffee.</p>
<p>Elio stares at me, raising his eyebrows while Sami says: “Look at that! Do you remember Maynard? The mess he made with the eggs?”</p>
<p>Annella laughs and lights up a cigarette. “Well, apparently not all Americans are clumsy savages.”</p>
<p>I nod to that, my mouth filled with egg yolk.</p>
<p>Elio pushes his chair back and is already about to get up. I can't have him slip away from me like this, before I even talked to him.</p>
<p>“Elio, could you show me around today? I'd really like to visit that belfry I saw on my way here. And were those gypsies camping by some old rail tracks in the woods?”</p>
<p>Elio takes a peach from a bowl and bites into it, shrugging.</p>
<p>Since this summer, I can't look at a peach without blushing, always remembering tasting Elio's special filling. Micol mocks me for it but has stopped asking why.</p>
<p>“Elio, are you mute?” Annella chides him.</p>
<p>“Well, I've no idea what he's talking about...” Peach juice drips down Elio's chin and he wipes it away with the back of his hand.</p>
<p>“I also need a bank account here, maybe you could take me to Crema?” I lather a crepe with Nutella and swear to myself to really go running tomorrow.</p>
<p>“Why not try Montodine first?” Elio asks, yawning, throwing the pit of the peach onto the lawn below the terrace.</p>
<p>“They are closed for the summer.” Me and Sami say simultaneously and we both have to laugh. </p>
<p>Elio rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“Can we at least take the car?” He asks sulkily.</p>
<p>“I'd really like to go by bike.” </p>
<p>“Can you even ride a bike, Americano?” Elio wobbles back and forth on his chair and Annella shoots him an irate look.</p>
<p>“Elio.” Sami says in a warning tone.</p>
<p>“What? I wanted to hang out with my friends today, and now I have to play tour guide for him.” He accusatory points at me with his index finger.</p>
<p>Annella furiously stubs out her cigarette and gets up.</p>
<p>“You'll do your best to be a good host, Elio Perlman. Don't behave like a spoiled child.”</p>
<p>And with that she sweeps inside.</p>
<p>“What is it with you today?” Sami asks, folding the Corriere della Serra before following his wife, shaking his head.</p>
<p>That leaves me and Elio alone at the breakfast table.</p>
<p>He's shredding a piece of bread into tiny crumbs on his plate but doesn't say anything so I eventually ask: “How was your night? I heard you came back late.”</p>
<p>“Are you keeping tabs on me?”</p>
<p>“Well, I couldn't help notice, as we live literally door to door. By the way, maybe we could-”</p>
<p>“If you want to go to Crema, meet me at the old shed by the front gate in half an hour.”</p>
<p>And with that, Elio gets up and almost runs inside. He's just wearing what looks like boxer shorts and an old sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves, leaving his arms bare and showing off the tufts of dark hair in his armpits. Has he any idea what he does to me, walking around like that, basically naked?</p>
<p>I decide to give him space and stroll through the orchard for the next 25 minutes, then sprint up the stairs to my room to fetch my old backpack and my wallet. I quickly check in on Elio's room again but it's empty (maybe he's hiding in the attic, rubbing one out over me?) so I go back down again to meet him at Anchise's shed.</p>
<p>Elio's a no-show for the next twenty minutes. I wish I had put on some sunscreen.</p>
<p>He saunters round the corner when I'm sure my face is lobster-red.</p>
<p>“I must have forgotten the time. Did you wait long?” He grins, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses.</p>
<p>“Doesn't matter.” I put my own sunglasses on. Two can play that game.</p>
<p>We get the bikes out and cycle down the road, Elio in front of me, giving me a prime view of his little firm ass. At least he put those jeans shorts back on, but they still show off his coin slot.</p>
<p>Did I really just call Elio's crack coin slot in my head?</p>
<p>God, it's truly the 80s all over again...</p>
<p>As we pass the dirt track leading up to Monet's Berm I stop.</p>
<p>“What's down here?” I ask.</p>
<p>Elio brakes as well, cycles back round to me.“Oh, just some murky pond surrounded by trees... not much to see.”</p>
<p>“Sounds nice. Can we go?”</p>
<p>“The bank in Crema will close soon for lunch break. We should hurry.” He pedals on, even faster than before. I have trouble keeping up despite my longer legs.</p>
<p>The bank in Crema is located off the cathedral square. I scoop up the paperwork and take it to a bar where I order a beer and Elio decides on Blue Curacao with soda.</p>
<p>Yep, hello 80s.</p>
<p>While I fill out the forms he takes out a book from his backpack and starts reading.</p>
<p>As he becomes aware that I'm staring at him, he eyes me over the rim of his black Ray Bans.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“What are you reading?”</p>
<p>“Paul Celan.”</p>
<p>I remember that Elio had been kind of obsessed with him that summer.</p>
<p>“Ah, zwischen immer und nie stößt dein Wort zu den Monden des Herzens.” I quote. I still have Stendhal's Armance with his inscription written on its frontispiece. It's securely kept it in my nightstand at home and I only take it out when Micol is away overnight.</p>
<p>Obviously surprised by my knowledge of German poetry Elio takes off his shades and looks at me, and it feels like the first time he's truly seeing me. “Wow, I'm impressed.” A small smile plays on his lips. It's the first time I see the Elio I remember so well.</p>
<p>“I once knew someone who was really into Celan.” I shrug. “In another life.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes, I forgot you're an old man.” Elio teases but it lacks bite.</p>
<p>“Well, you called me exactly that last night.” I'm hoping that we might have entered the stage of easy banter but apparently I cheered too soon, for Elio puts his sunglasses back on and gets up.</p>
<p>“If you excuse me, I've something else to do so... I'm sure you'll find your way around now.” He quickly gets on his bike and leaves me behind with my bank forms and the tab.</p>
<p>I manage to open an account without his help, then cycle back to the villa. Everyone's asleep after lunch so I change into my bathing trunks and go down to chill by the pool, daydreaming in my Heaven.</p>
<p>It's the most beautiful place in the world to me.</p>
<p>When I'm about to dose off, however, there's movement to my right and then the thuja hedge parts and Vimini steps into the garden.</p>
<p>“You're the new one.” She greets me.</p>
<p>“Yes, I'm Oliver. Hello. And you must be Vimini. Elio told me all about you.” I can't believe I'm shaking her small hand again.</p>
<p>“Did he? Did he tell you that I'm dying?”</p>
<p>I swallow, shading my eyes with my free hand, nod.</p>
<p>“It's a shame, don't you think? I'm too young to die.” She sits down cross-legged on the small wall surrounding the pool.</p>
<p>“Absolutely. But I'm sure they'll find a cure and you'll live to celebrate your hundredth birthday.” I lie.</p>
<p>She grins at that, twirling one of her pigtails around her fingers. “Elio said you're an idiot. But I like you.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>We talk. She tells me about school, her family, about Rome where she went for another treatment, about the books she's reading (“Anna Karenina is such a whiny snob!”). When I mention that I studied a few semesters in New York City she has a million questions which I gladly answer (“Have you been to the Statue of Liberty?” - “Have you ever been robbed at knife-point?” - “Is it true you have bubblegum ice-cream there?”)</p>
<p>I had forgotten how much I enjoyed our innocent, straight-forward conversations.</p>
<p>Some hours later, Sami finds us beneath a cherry tree and Vimini excuses herself and slips back through the hedge.</p>
<p>“We should do a bit of work.” Sami sounds eager, rubbing his hands. I remember that I'm here to help him with his studies, and not just to seduce his son.</p>
<p>Said son walks into his father's study while I'm sorting his correspondence, followed by Annella carrying a tray with a carafe full of fresh apricot juice and four glasses.</p>
<p>Sami says something about the origin of the word apricot but I'm not really listening as my blood pools between my legs watching Elio down a glass, his Adam's apple bopping in his long throat as he swallows the thick juice.</p>
<p>I catch Annella and Sami exchanging a look as I just agree with his explanation, and then Elio pecks his mother on the cheek and declares that he's going out with his friends and won't join us for dinner tonight.</p>
<p>He lounges about a bit longer, though, reading more Celan and now and then watching me as I wreak total havoc with Sami's already chaotic filing system. When I knock over a tray of slides he calls it a day and I'm dismissed.</p>
<p>Elio snorts a laugh and Annella lights another cigarette as I go up to my room to change for dinner.</p>
<p>Later at the table, Elio's mom tells the guests how glad she is that Elio is meeting people his own age more often this summer. She'd been worried that he'd become a loner. I stare down at the fish on my plate and suddenly feel very lonely, my appetite gone. The fish looks up at me from dead eyes and I experience a connection that tells me no more white wine, thank you.</p>
<p>I end up once again alone in bed, touching myself at the thought of Elio swallowing something else than apricot juice...</p>
<p>Over the next few days I don't see much of him. I've started to hang out in the garden by the pool, remembering that he often sat in the shade of the trees in its vicinity, plucking on his guitar or furiously scribbling notes onto music paper while listening to his Walkman.</p>
<p>But now he's nowhere to be seen. The grand piano in the villa stands abandoned and disused.</p>
<p>To channel my frustration, I make good on my promise and run in the mornings, jogging through the surrounding countryside. More than once I pass Monet's Berm, but there's no sign of Elio here either.</p>
<p>In the afternoons, I chat to Vimini or go down to the beach – or both – to swim and sunbath. Some mornings, I help Sami sort his files and notes and do some two finger typing on his old Remington (I know personal computers were already around back then – thank you Bill Gates - but of course not at the Villa Alberghoni!) but when he asks me after a week how my dissertation is coming along I have to confess that I didn't work on it at all. That shouldn't be a problem, though. I still remember enough of my thesis to type it up in about two weeks. Sure, I might have to check some references, but hey, I'll manage.</p>
<p>Much more pressing is wooing Elio.</p>
<p>I get another chance when he and his friends eventually descend onto the villa's garden one afternoon to play volleyball.</p>
<p>Of course, Elio doesn't engage in any sports that might injure his precious pianist's fingers, but I'm glad I get the opportunity to compete with those teenagers.</p>
<p>I know I'm pretty good at it and I also know that I look hot with all my sweaty muscles on display, just wearing short bathing trunks. All is fair in love and war. </p>
<p>Yet I remember Elio's reaction when I touched him in front of his friends to show him that I liked him – and therefore keep my distance, as tempting as his lean, tanned torso is. Nonetheless, I'm highly aware of him and Marzia sitting at the sideline, their heads bend low together, whispering.</p>
<p>Very likely about me.</p>
<p>I never quite figured out if something happened between them that summer. Chiara had hinted as much but Elio had never really said anything apart from that one crude remark at the breakfast table, which I had taken for teenage boisterousness to make me jealous.</p>
<p>I had almost forgotten Chiara. As I look at her now, playing once again for my team, I wonder if I really found her attractive that summer, or if she just reminded me of Micol? They have a strong resemblance; both are tall, slim, with small boobs and short blond curls... apparently, I don't like it too voluptuous. </p>
<p>Micol and me, well... Before I'd left for Italy in 1987 we had a big fight. Huge. Ugly. Among other things, she accused me of non-committal to our relationship – in which she'd been probably right.</p>
<p>I remember that during spring 1987, I'd trawled the gay bars of the village more than usual, coming down to New York almost every weekend, leaving Micol alone in Boston. As she was busy with medical school I thought she wouldn't notice but apparently she did.</p>
<p>And she had started to ask questions I wasn't prepared to answer. So I'd accused her of being too clingy and fucked off to Italy, telling her I needed space and time to think.</p>
<p>God, I had been a mess back then, totally uncertain of what I wanted. I knew I liked men but AIDS was hitting the US pretty badly. There was so much frustration and fear within the community (not that I thought myself a part of it), and so much hatred towards it. The gay plague HIV was called back then and gay men were treated more and more like lepers. Did I truly want to live like that?</p>
<p>I think that burden of guilt, shame, and self-hatred I carried was why my immediate attraction to Elio shocked me so deeply. He had nothing of the haunted looks I so often had encountered in the darkened backrooms of seedy bars. He was fresh and sweet and innocent instead – and I couldn't believe that I was allowed to have someone like him. Besides, he was still so young – a virgin, though Micol would hit me over the head for applying this outdated concept – yet curious, free and unabashed.</p>
<p>This 17-year old boy had been the most beautiful, the most intelligent, fascinating and alluring person I'd ever encountered.</p>
<p>And it was obvious that he wanted me – yet I dared not to believe my luck. I was afraid to reach out and touch because that could corrupt and defile him. Those were my trials and tribulations that fought within me, the reasons I put on the aura of the arrogant American, ignoring Elio as best I could, in the firm believe that I would only mess him up.</p>
<p>Well, I did mess him up, I learned later – much later – but not the way I'd thought.</p>
<p>Yet, right now, here, in Italy, I'm not ready to face the aftermath of my Italian summer – not before it has even begun. I decide to block out everything that happened after my return to the States for the sake of once – only once – allowing myself six weeks of blissful, untainted happiness with Elio.</p>
<p>Yet to bring these merry times on it's evident that something more has to be done than me hanging about the villa, looking enticing.</p>
<p>At the volleyball game, I overhear that Elio wants to meet the others the next day at the beach. I'll make sure I'll be there as well, because frolicking around with him in the shallow surf or dunking him when a wave rolls in, rescuing him within my strong arms, will provide the perfect setting for some hanky-panky.</p>
<p>This evening, however, some colleagues of his father are coming to dinner and Elio's presence is required. I hear him and his parents argue over it in the late afternoon, with Elio declaring he wants to go out with his friends while Sami insists that he stays home and even plays piano.</p>
<p>At the table, Elio sits too far away from me to make more than eye-contact, decidedly ignoring his food and going straight for the wine instead. His only contributions to the conversation are acerbic remarks and silly jokes, so much that Sami eventually takes his wine glass away from him.</p>
<p>“I think you had enough.”</p>
<p>Elio rolls his eyes at that and lights a cigarette. Everyone ignores him afterwards and he seems fine with that, only my eyes are glued to the cigarette he sucks between his lips...</p>
<p>When the mosquitoes are getting too aggressive for the citronella candles, we relocate inside and Annella asks Elio to play.</p>
<p>Sulkily, he drags himself over to the piano and lowers his long, dexterous fingers onto the keys. </p>
<p>It's not Bach, as I expected – nor Ravel, his dainty melodies wafting through the villa early in the morning something else I remember from that summer – but a modern, atonal composition. When I lean over to Annella and ask what he's playing she whispers back: “He's in a heavy Kurt Weill phase right now. It's called The Seven Deadly Sins.” She shrugs, lighting another cigarette.</p>
<p>At least he's not chosen Wagner.</p>
<p>After the last note fades out, he excuses himself – and I do the same. I try to make it look accidental when I amble into the bathroom, hoping to catch him brushing his teeth, but Elio seems to have fallen into bed foregoing oral hygiene.</p>
<p>(I briefly remember the fights my two sons had/will put up in the evenings as toddlers, so tired that they were/will be crying and kicking, yet I as a responsible parent had/will insist(ed) that they clean(ed) their teeth and wash(ed) their faces. Dentistry hurts and costs a lot of money, after all. I would/will never allow them to slack off like Elio!) </p>
<p>At least he's home tonight.</p>
<p>Next morning, I try to wake him early to go running with me, but his answer is a groan, followed by a pillow thrown in my direction.</p>
<p>He skips breakfast as well and Sami shrugs in apology for his wayward son.</p>
<p>I stroll down to the beach later where I encounter Elio's friends. Yet he himself is a no-show once again.</p>
<p>This is when I'm having enough. Who does he think I am? I'm not one of his teenage flings – as if he even had any! – he can lead down the garden path (ha!), I'm a  grown ass man and I'm growing tired of his little antics. </p>
<p>Him staying out of my way won't prevent the course of fate. Instead of some medieval novel his mother should have read him the Babylonian Talmud from which he could have learned that you can't outrun kismet. He should just accept that we are made for each other and give in to his feelings.</p>
<p>So I walk up to the villa again – where apparently everyone is napping – determined to whisk my Elio away and show him what he's been missing out on this first week.</p>
<p>But as I unceremoniously yank open the door to his room, I don't encounter Elio with a hand down his boxers as I had expected, jerking off to thoughts of my sweaty body. No, to my utter astonishment I find him with his head buried between Marzia's naked, spread thighs.</p>
<p>At least she has the decency to scream, while Elio just looks at me over his shoulder with hooded eyes and glistening lips and says: “Can't you knock?” before returning to eat Marzia out – quite satisfactory, if her expression is anything to go by.</p>
<p>“Fuck off, you perv!” She says as I still stand in the doorway, and that eventually gets me going. I run down the stairs, grab Anchise's bike, and ride as fast as I can until I find myself at Monet's Berm where I throw the bike away and yell in utter frustration at the bright Italian summer sky.</p>
<p>Of course, there's no answer.</p>
<p>Zwischen immer und nie – I feel the meaning of those words in a way I never thought I would...</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Marzia deserved better than that moldy mattress in the attic!</p>
<p>The story Oliver is referring to from the Babylonian Talmud is know in the West as Appointment in Samara (https://www.tatanka.com/topic/parables/appointment_in_samarra.html), based on an old Babylonian folktale: http://juchre.org/talmud/sukkah/sukkah3.htm#53a<br/>The part referenced starts with "R. Johanan stated, A man's feet are responsible for him; they lead him to the place where he is wanted."</p>
<p>Believe me, good things are ahead, but maybe not the way many of you expect. Remember, if you change the past you change the future.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Oliver changes tactics</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the end, I calm down.</p>
<p>A little.</p>
<p>I take a few deep breaths, wash my face in the freezing water, and sit down in the shade of the conifers surrounding the pond.</p>
<p>Okay, time to get rational, I guess.</p>
<p>Because things are happening quite differently from how I remember them.</p>
<p>And it what's happening now differs from what happened... the first time around – what does that mean for my future?</p>
<p>It's true, I banished all thoughts of what happened after my return home – but maybe it's time to face the music?</p>
<p>I had spoken to Micol only once during that summer – a painfully awkward phone call lasting five minutes, avoiding to mention the elephant in the room – which had not so much been Elio but my whole conduct prior to leaving for Italy.</p>
<p>And yet, Micol had remembered the date of my return and had waited at the airport.</p>
<p>That evening, we'd got drunk and I had been jet-lagged as fuck and had been on the verge to tearfully spill everything. But Micol had just hugged me and said that this summer had been my rumspringa, two months of exploration. I should keep to myself what had happened in Europe, not as a secret but as something deeply personal to me.</p>
<p>She'd also told me that she still loved me.</p>
<p>And I had somehow not thought of Elio – probably because it would have broken my heart – but of Sami and Annella and the home, the loving atmosphere they'd created.</p>
<p>And as I had decided against Elio by leaving him and Italy – maybe I could at least go for that? We, Micol and me, could try for that?</p>
<p>So we had kissed a little and then I'd fallen asleep and over the next few weeks I had tried to get closer to her again. And it had worked.</p>
<p>By December, when I had returned to Italy, she'd been pregnant and we'd been planning our wedding for the spring.</p>
<p>Alex had been born the following September.</p>
<p>But I had only been able to go through with all of it because I'd had my summer with Elio.</p>
<p>Did I ask myself if I should have stayed with him, over the years after leaving him? Oh yes, you can bet on it.</p>
<p>I railed against it, quarreled with myself. Once or twice Micol and I almost split up.</p>
<p>But deep down I always knew – and still know – that Elio and I didn't have a future, not back in 1987.</p>
<p>He was – is – just 17. Still in school. While I was/am finishing university. He had/has so many formative experiences still coming for him that I had/have been through already.</p>
<p>I didn't want to take that away from him. To be able to be young. I still don't want to...</p>
<p>But, yes, I've also been a coward.</p>
<p>We'd been careful here in Italy, at the villa, and still his parents had known what's been going on. Thank god they'd accepted their sons explorations and didn't send me packing in disgrace for seducing a minor.</p>
<p>But I had been aware that this meant that other people would know rather sooner than later if we stayed together. That it would mean coming out – to my family, my friends, my colleagues – with all the consequences for my life and career. And I hadn't been ready for that (I'm still not sure I am now, 20 years on, to be honest). And I wouldn't just have been 'the gay one'. I'd also been the one who had hooked up with a boy almost ten years younger.</p>
<p>How long would our love have survived this? The looks, the whispers, the insults, the discrimination? Could a six week love affair – consummated for barely two – offer a strong enough basis to navigate these storms?</p>
<p>It's true, I had told Elio that I would try, that we would write, that we could talk on the telephone... but every letter from him - enthusiastic, exuberant – had only pushed the knife deeper between my ribs. I had started to avoid his calls or cut them short because I couldn't bear the love, the hope I'd heard in his voice (thank god long distance calls had been a luxury expensive back in the 80s, so he didn't call that often).</p>
<p>He must have sensed something because when I'd returned for Christmas to at least let him down in person, he'd accepted it much better than I had hoped for.</p>
<p>And wasn't that a sign in itself? That, yes, I'd been his first, but that it hadn't been that deep?</p>
<p>Only, over the next 20 years, would I slowly find out what this summer had done to us both... and yet, even now, all grown up, with my kids leaving home, I am still unable to be honest with Elio. Over the last few years I learned that our summer had hit him harder – and differently – than I had thought (or wanted to believe). And yet, he did never make a pass on me after that Christmas ever again. True, there had been looks, but they seemed more and more fueled by nostalgia than actual longing; the expression of something that we both knew could never have been, but that we kept alive nonetheless, to remind us of a possibility that was enough in itself...</p>
<p>My head is spinning as it all comes back: my cowardice, my uncertainty, the decision to take the easy road and justifying that to myself as doing Elio a favor – instead of acknowledging that I just did it to keep my little, boring life together, to uphold my pathetic aspirations-</p>
<p>No, stop it, Oliver! Not everything is pathetic and sad about my life. I have two amazing sons!</p>
<p>But if I'll never have my summer with Elio – will I be able to get back together with Micol in autumn? Or will I just keep on roaming the gay bars of the village, eventually catching the gay plague and be dead by the age of thirty? Rotting in some hospital where no one wants to come near me, dying alone and forgotten?</p>
<p>Or, even worse, will Elio make some stupid mistakes? I remember in horror that back in 1987 we never used condoms! We just whispered an embarrassed 'I'm healthy' at each other before we stuck our cocks up each other's ass without any protection.</p>
<p>I imagine right now that Elio does this with another man who might already be infected... that it will be Elio in a hospital bed, instead of me, thin as a skeleton, with only some sad tufts of dark hair remaining on his head, his body covered with black spots, unable to eat, to see, to move...</p>
<p>Fuck, no! This can't happen. This won't happen! He needs a gentle, considerate lover.</p>
<p>But right now, me taking Elio to bed seems like wishful thinking only.</p>
<p>I need a plan.</p>
<p>Apparently, doing what I know now – at 44 – would be the right thing to do doesn't work here. Neither me being openly inviting, nor me being appreciative of him, nor me acting sensible.</p>
<p>I try to remember what I did in 1987, how I behaved. I can recall being torn, being unsure, pushing Elio away again and again, aware of his obvious crush on me, yet not ready to openly reciprocate it, being too afraid of my own feelings. It had been so confusing – I even had tried to make out with Chiara to distract myself from this 17 year old nymph residing in the garden of the villa.</p>
<p>A boy who read all the time and played Bach and transcribed music... but this Elio I met here now is different as well. He hangs out with his friends, goes out – where is his piano playing, for example?</p>
<p>With a shock I realize that maybe Elio had done all this only to woo me? And that if I don't give him the chance to do so he will not pursue theses things any further? His life might change even more drastic than mine if we don't get it on.</p>
<p>Okay, so, what am I going to do? Act more like the immature Oliver from 20 years ago? Ignore Elio? Leave him alone for days? Ghost him until, out of the blue, I pay him attention? Acting like a true prick, in short.</p>
<p>But it has to be done.</p>
<p>It's already dark when I get on my bike and cycle back to the villa. I might have already made good on my new resolution as dinner must be long past.</p>
<p>I have no light on my bike – yeah, the 80s were wild, I don't wear a helmet either, it's a miracle humankind survived – and so I can't blame the car that almost crashes into me, shooting round a bend on the dark country road, of course speeding much faster than allowed here.</p>
<p>Thank god I manage to brake, but the back wheel skids on the bumpy asphalt and I fall on my side, scraping my skin just above my hip.</p>
<p>Fuck! I should have known! My only excuse is that I'm emotionally wrung out.</p>
<p>As I return the slightly battered bike to Anchise's shed, I encounter him sitting on the lawn, smoking. I try to explain what happened in my broken Italian and he somehow gets it, takes the bike from me and ushers me into his little cottage next to the shed. There, he applies some sort of witches brew. It burns – and stinks – like hell but I'm unable to stop him.</p>
<p>I eventually manage to escape and just faceplant into bed, too tired to even undress.</p>
<p>Over the next few days, I make a point of getting up early, going for a run, having a quick breakfast in the kitchen before going out for the whole day, only returning late in the evenings. I bike around the countryside, explore churches and small villages, and even take up playing poker with the locals.</p>
<p>I still have it. I win. Not that I care much about it.</p>
<p>After four days of depriving Elio of my presence, I decide it's time to stay for a day. I lounge by the pool, and to my utter delight Elio ambles down there mid-morning as well with his Walkman, a book and some pages of music paper...</p>
<p>Yet he quickly falls asleep in a deckchair.</p>
<p>I have to suppress the urge to wake him up and remind him to use some sunscreen. Instead, I ignore him the best I can, feigning to read my book. I found Heart of Darkness in Elio's room and decided to give it a go. It is deeply unsettling and I'm not sure I'm in the right mood for it – and it frightens me a little as I remember Elio reading it over our summer.</p>
<p>I sense him stir but still do not look.</p>
<p>“What are you reading?” He asks eventually.</p>
<p>“Joseph Conrad.” I don't look at him, instead I turn the page I've been staring at for the past ten minutes.</p>
<p>“You like it?”</p>
<p>“I'm not sure.”</p>
<p>A pause. A long pause.</p>
<p>“What's that on your side? Did you hurt yourself?”</p>
<p>So he's been looking at me.</p>
<p>“I fell, scraped myself pretty badly. Anchise insisted to apply some sort of witches brew.” I finally lower my book to glance over at him.</p>
<p>“Yeah, he does that.” Elio shudders despite the sunshine. “I think he's creepy.”</p>
<p>“I think he's kind.”</p>
<p>“Kind?”</p>
<p>Speaking of the devil, Anchise walks down the garden path in that very moment, carrying some fishing rods. I seize my luck and get up.</p>
<p>“Anchise, posso unirmi a te?” I yell and wave at him.</p>
<p>He just shrugs so I get up, put on my shirt and espadrilles, and follow him.</p>
<p>We spend the day in a small boat out at sea, mostly in silence. I've actually done some fishing as a kid and – like riding a bike – it all comes back this afternoon: quiet hours spent with my dad in his little dingy on a lake behind our house; the waiting, staring out over the water; the excitement when the line dipped. The pride of having caught my first false albacore.</p>
<p>Today, we catch a swordfish!</p>
<p>I want to stay out longer but in the early evening a storm approaches, fast, and we have to hurry to get back to the shore, only making it to the villa when it's already pissing down. We run though the rain, carrying the big fish between us, laughing like mad men.</p>
<p>Mafalda scolds us when we barge into her kitchen, all wet and dripping, smelling of fish, sweat and mud. Yet we can't stop laughing until Anchise makes her serve us some grappa.</p>
<p>Only then do I see Elio lingering in the kitchen hallway.</p>
<p>“We worried where you've been.” He says, trying to sound casual but there's an angry frown on his face.</p>
<p>“Well, we're back now.” I walk past him, taking off my soaked shirt. I know he's staring daggers at me and I smirk as I climb the stairs to take a shower.</p>
<p>We have swordfish for a late dinner. With candle light as the storm and lightning blew the fuses earlier. It's eerily romantic, with the wind howling outside, shaking the trees, their branches rattling against the closed shutters.</p>
<p>As much as I hate to say it, the old saying 'Treat them like a doormat and they come running after you' seems to be true – because the next afternoon, when I return from Moscazzano where I had a few beers with my new poker friends, I encounter Elio in my – his – room. He's standing in front of the bookshelf as if looking for something to read, but is treacherously out of breath, with two bright red spots blooming on his cheeks.</p>
<p>“Hey. What's up?” I greet him casually, pulling my sweaty t-shirt over my head. The crimson spots on his face deepen to almost purple as he tries – and fails – to avoid looking at me.</p>
<p>“Uhm, I... I was wondering, we'll all go out dancing by the river tonight...?”</p>
<p>He leaves the question hanging in the air between us.</p>
<p>“Ugh, dancing. Sorry, I'll pass. Not my thing.” And I saunter off into the bathroom, very pleased with myself. </p>
<p>As I run the shower I imagine Elio imagining me now, wet, naked, soaping my body... I touch myself and groan, hoping he might hear me over the rush of water. I splatter the green tiles with my cum and don't bother to rinse it all off.</p>
<p>Let him find some signs.</p>
<p>My room is empty when I return. There's no book missing from the shelf. Yet I find my red bathing trunks peeking out from under the bed – definitely not where I kicked them off after going swimming in the morning. I remember hanging them over the back of the bed to dry.</p>
<p>Oh, Elio...</p>
<p>It breaks my heart a little. But it has to be done.</p>
<p>There's no dinner party in the evening because Sami and Annella go out. So Mafalda prepares just salad, pasta, and some fresh bred with butter and sets it up in the kitchen. </p>
<p>Elio seems to have left already, so I take a piece of ciabatta and chew it while walking out onto the terrace.</p>
<p>There, I hear a bike on the gravel.</p>
<p>It's Chiara.</p>
<p>“Ciao, Oliver.” She waves, smiles.</p>
<p>I find two beers in the fridge, and Chiara giggles while she tries to teach me some Italian.</p>
<p>“Let's go dancing.” She says eventually.</p>
<p>“I don't know...”</p>
<p>“Come on.” She smiles. “Please.”</p>
<p>I shake my head but get my bike. We ride through the dark countryside until we arrive by the river. There are colorful fairy lights, a bar in a tent, and an improvised wooden dancefloor.</p>
<p>The party is already in full flow. </p>
<p>I spy Elio sitting with his friends around a table, a few glasses gathered in its middle. Marzia is almost in his lap, whispering in his ear. He shakes his head, lights a cigarette.</p>
<p>Chiara pulls me onto the dancefloor, holding me tight.</p>
<p>I have to confess – I love dancing. I'm just not very good at it. So I sway a little stiffly at first, but ease up when Chiara rubs herself against me.</p>
<p>And then the DJ plays Love My Way. God, I love this song! It's been so long since I heard it...</p>
<p>So I just... dance. Free, forgetting all those eyes on me, becoming one with the music...</p>
<p>Well, perhaps not exactly one, but I just don't give a toss what those teenagers think of me as I slide over the floorboards, jumping up and down, waving my arms to the rhythm of the stomping beat.</p>
<p>I just fucking love the song! It means so much to me.</p>
<p>Suddenly, I see Elio... gyrating all over the dancefloor. There's no other word for it. His hips are snapping while he rolls his shoulders and for a second I think he's coming for me – but then he grabs Marzia around the waist.</p>
<p>Of course.</p>
<p>When the song ends, Chiara pulls me over to the bar. She wants to get another drink but I just need to get away from here. So I excuse myself, telling her that nature calls, but instead I sneak around to where we left our bikes and cycle off into the night as fast as I can.</p>
<p>I'm more careful this time, though. I don't want to risk another accident. The scrape from last time still hurts. Maybe Anchise's witch medicine made it even worse?</p>
<p>Back at the villa, I shower, hoping not to wake Sami and Annella. But I need to wash – I feel filthy somehow.</p>
<p>Afterwards, I lie in bed. I'm not really waiting for Elio, as I know he might probably be very late, but I can't sleep either. I try to read a bit but can't concentrate.</p>
<p>Earlier that I expected I hear Elio walk into the bathroom. He quickly showers, too, and I imagine his lithe body naked under the warm spray...</p>
<p>No, stop it! That's no good right now with him so close...</p>
<p>When I hear the door to my room open from the bathroom I feign sleep.</p>
<p>After the door is closed again, I see a sliver of light coming from Elio's room shining under the door. He stays awake into the wee hours – which I know because I do the same.</p>
<p>The next morning, over breakfast, I wait for Elio bragging about his night with Marzia. But it never comes. Instead, he inhales three crepes with Nutella, licking the sticky chocolate cream off his fingers while staring at me.</p>
<p>I promptly massacre my egg, the yolk spilling all over as I smash the shell way too hard.</p>
<p>Sami chuckles, then invites me to go to lake Garda with him.</p>
<p>“Can I come too?” Elio asks.</p>
<p>Sami smirks and agrees.</p>
<p>We do a bit of work in the morning and then Chiara pops over. She asks me where I went last night and I tell her I felt sick and had to leave. Then she asks me if we can meet again in the evening.</p>
<p>Her eyes are big as she smiles up at me.</p>
<p>But I can't. This is all wrong. I can't behave like a jerk towards her. It's not fair.</p>
<p>So I tell her.</p>
<p>“There's someone else...”</p>
<p>“Here?” She frowns.</p>
<p>“No, back home.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” She bites her lips. “I don't mind.”</p>
<p>“But I do.”</p>
<p>I hear a door slam somewhere, fast steps as if someone's running away...</p>
<p>When I lead Chiara outside Elio is already waiting by his dad's car, dark shades covering his eyes. I kiss Chiara's cheek and say good-bye to her, then walk over to get in on the back seat.</p>
<p>Elio climbs in next to me.</p>
<p>“You never said.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You never said there was someone back in the States.” He turns to me, his face closed off.</p>
<p>Fuck!</p>
<p>“Elio, listen-”</p>
<p>“What's up, boys?” Sami is leaning in on the driver's side window.</p>
<p>“Nothing.” We both answer in unison.</p>
<p>The drive is tense. Elio stares out his window and I stare out mine. The radio plays some cheesy Italo pop. It's not helping.</p>
<p>Sami smokes and curses other drivers but has the courtesy not to bother us in our moping.</p>
<p>Lake Garda is as magnificent as I remember it. Me and Micol went here at least three times over the years, even bringing the boys. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth to me.</p>
<p>As we walk the site, I lose myself in the ancient ruins. What have they seen? How much sadness and suffering... it dwarfs my and Elio's situation.</p>
<p>At the shore, Sami shows us what's been brought up so far. Elio and I stare at the ancient relic, a perfectly sculpted arm, and at least I marvel at the fleeting virtue of beauty and time... until Elio takes up the arm and offers it to me for a handshake.</p>
<p>“Tregua?”</p>
<p>I accept.</p>
<p>The afternoon unfolds quite interestingly. We go on a tiny boat on the lake, admiring the artifacts discovered.</p>
<p>In the evening, we jump into the lake in our underwear. Elio and I splash and dunk each other like I thought we'd do at the beach almost a week ago while Sami swims out, not paying us much attention.</p>
<p>Elio and I laugh and fool around, me lifting him up and throwing him into the water like I used to do with my kids when they were small. He squeals and laughs so hard he has to hold his little belly.</p>
<p>With a sharp, sudden pang, I miss my sons. Will I ever see them again?</p>
<p>Driving back to Crema, I doze off, emotionally and physically tired. When Sami suggests a night cap upon our return to the villa I'm about to decline but Elio agrees (which makes Sami chuckle), so I follow them into the sitting room.</p>
<p>Sami pours us all an Osborne – I smile a little as I see Elio shudder while downing it – and we just sit and reminiscent the day. Elio got some freckles on the ridge of his nose from the sun. I want to kiss them.</p>
<p>But suddenly, he gets up and walks over to the piano. Sitting down, he starts to play something quite elegiac that I don't remember from that summer but instantly like.</p>
<p>Sami and I both listen in silence. I can't take my eyes off Elio; his elegant fingers skimming the keys; his back hunching and straightening; his face frowning one minute, then smiling the other.</p>
<p>“What was that?” I ask when he's finished. “It's beautiful.”</p>
<p>“It's my own.” He whispers, then gets up and runs up the stairs.</p>
<p>“Teenage boys are so moody.” Sami shakes his head. “I just wished...”</p>
<p>“What?” I ask.</p>
<p>“I just wished Elio could be... more honest with himself. I feel he's... hiding. Behind his books, his music. And there's no need for that. He's an incredible young man.”</p>
<p>I can't help it, I nod. Sami fixes me with a stare and I think he's about to say something more but then he just gets up. “Excuse me, I still have some work to do. Good night.”</p>
<p>I don't know what I expect as I walk up the stairs – but it surely isn't Elio sitting on my bed, waiting for me.</p>
<p>“Hey...” He greets me, looking up at me.</p>
<p>“Uhm... hey.” I'm aware I sound more shaken than surprised.</p>
<p>“I like what you've done with the place. It's nice.” Elio gestures around the room.</p>
<p>“Thanks.” I shrug.</p>
<p>I feel overwhelmed. This didn't happen. The whole evening went differently the last time...</p>
<p>“Can you... sit for a second?” Elio pats the space next to him on the bed.</p>
<p>I sit down as if on autopilot.</p>
<p>“I heard you... with Chiara. This morning.” He swallows. “So, you have someone waiting for you back home?”</p>
<p>He sounds so small.</p>
<p>“I don't know.” I answer as honest as I can. “We fought. I left her without reconciling-”</p>
<p>“Her?” He sounds surprised.</p>
<p>“Yes. Micol, that's her name. It's been on and off for two or three years...”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Because I like boys as well.” It's the first time I say it out loud.</p>
<p>“So, you like boys and girls. Like me.” Elio isn't looking at me, talking to the floor.</p>
<p>“I guess.”</p>
<p>He just nods, then falls back onto the mattress. I look down at him.</p>
<p>“Thank you for being honest with me.” He says.</p>
<p>It breaks my heart.</p>
<p>“Sorry.” I whisper as I lie down beside him.</p>
<p>“Don't be. I was wondering... but maybe I got it all wrong-”</p>
<p>“You didn't.”</p>
<p>He suddenly leans over, touches my lower lip with his index finger. I dart my tongue out to catch it – but it's gone.</p>
<p>Only to be replaced with Elio's mouth, lips, tongue as I find myself with a lap full of teenage boy.</p>
<p>He kisses me, hard, sloppy, a bit unskilled but quite enthusiastic. I know I should push him off, I know we should talk more – but I can't. This is fulfilling every wet dream I had the past 20 years and I'm only human after all, so I let him kiss me and kiss me and kiss me.</p>
<p>Until he pulls away.</p>
<p>“Better now?” He asks.</p>
<p>And I just grin up at him.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>But then Elio is starting to pull off his t-shirt and I stop him.</p>
<p>“No. Just... I don't want to mess you up. I want to be good.”</p>
<p>“I'm sure you'll be.” His mouth is on me again and as I said, I'm only human. Especially as his left hand is groping my groin right now. I'm very, very human...</p>
<p>“You're so hard.” He breaths against my mouth.</p>
<p>And I am. I think I might black out. So I'm very proud of me when I remember to suggest: “Condoms!”</p>
<p>But Elio just laughs. “What? I'm not getting pregnant or anything...”</p>
<p>“Elio!” I push him back, maybe a little harder than necessary. “We have to be save.”</p>
<p>“What are you even talking about?”</p>
<p>Yes, what am I talking about? I'm talking about having sex with a minor, a boy the age of my own kids...</p>
<p>I remove his hand from my swelling dick.</p>
<p>“Elio, I'm sorry, but not like this. We need to talk first.”</p>
<p>“Talk?” He says it as if it's a four letter word. Which it is.</p>
<p>“Yes. Talk. I... I have to tell you something.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I really had different plans for this chapter and  the whole fic. Fuck those two dudes!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Oliver is losing control.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's always darkest before sunrise.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They say when you die your life runs backwards before your eyes. Well, right now, my life as I know it runs on fast forward: I see Micol, my two boys being born, becoming a professor, my dad's funeral, meeting Elio again – the same person now sitting next to me but 15 years older, with a beard and a distinguished career himself – our slow re-connection until I visit him alone in Italy after his father's death – Sami, who is currently downstairs, working in his study – in 20 years...</p>
<p>I fear that this will all be wiped out if I don't tread carefully.</p>
<p>But I also have to talk some sense into Elio – and myself.</p>
<p>I remember the morning after our first time – the way Elio had looked at me as if I had violated him; his badly disguised disgust. He'd wanted to go swimming to wash away all the remnants of what we'd done.</p>
<p>Our fuck.</p>
<p>My cock up his ass.</p>
<p>My come on his skin.</p>
<p>I had felt awful, like a rapist. And I think he'd felt even worse. </p>
<p>He'd told me that it still hurt during the morning.</p>
<p>That he'd still felt me splitting him open, ripping him apart.</p>
<p>All the pain, the guilt... I want to spare him. I want this to be good for him...</p>
<p>Besides, it all happened differently. Our first kiss, for example – it didn't happen here in this room but on Monet's Berm, in the summer sun – and it was <i>me</i> who kissed him first, not the other way around.</p>
<p>And why can I remember this when it never happened? Or will it happen? And if not, why do I not remember kissing Elio like this in my/his room?</p>
<p>Everything starts to spin.</p>
<p>I put my head in my hands and start to laugh.</p>
<p>Because this is absurd.</p>
<p>“You wanted to tell me something!” Elio sounds hurt. “Or are you just making fun of me?”</p>
<p>He gets up and stands in front of me now, hands on his hips, frowning. There's hurt in his face. I remember that this Elio is just seventeen, that he doesn't have much experience with any of this, and that he probably feels very vulnerable and humiliated by my previous rebuff and now my crazy laughter. I don't blame him.</p>
<p>“Elio.” I say softly, forcing the spinning room to stop. “Please, sit for a second.”</p>
<p>He shuffles a little closer but shakes his head. Stubborn as ever.</p>
<p>“Okay, listen, I know what you want right now... and you think it's a good idea. To have sex. With me. But... I'm so much older than you. And you haven't done anything of this sort with anyone. We need to-”</p>
<p>“What?! How do you know what I've done in bed and with whom?” He sounds so affronted it almost convinces me.</p>
<p>“Elio, sex isn't a competition. Or a race. You have to be sure-”</p>
<p>“You sound like my father.” He spits in my face.</p>
<p>And it's probably true.</p>
<p>“But you love your father.”</p>
<p>“What's that supposed to mean?” He stomps his feet. “I certainly don't want to make out with him.”</p>
<p>That's good!</p>
<p>“You said I was too old.” What am I doing here? Why am I suddenly talking Elio out of having sex with me, playing devil's advocate?</p>
<p>“To rile you up!”</p>
<p>I can't tell him that I'm 44. He would think me totally off my rocker. Rightfully so. Because I feel more than just a little wacky myself. But I have to at least try and talk to him, have a sensible conversation.</p>
<p>“I am much older than you think I am.” God, I sound like some bad impersonation of a mysterious time traveler.</p>
<p>“You're 24, I saw your application.” Fuck, okay. Another try.</p>
<p>“And it doesn't disturb you that I have a fiancee?”</p>
<p>“Well, I don't want to marry you. In fact, I'm not even sure I want to make out with you anymore.”</p>
<p>Good! But also - not.</p>
<p>“Elio, we need to talk about the implications of what we're about to do, the consequences, your expectations. Your limits-”</p>
<p>“You walked in on me and Marzia! You know I have experience!”</p>
<p>“You ate a girl's pussy. That's not experience!”</p>
<p>“Oh, because <i>Mister I'm sooo mature and do that to my fiancee regularly</i> says so!”</p>
<p>This is getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>“Besides, I slept with her. After La Danzing!” Elio sounds proud.</p>
<p>“Liar!”</p>
<p>“How would you know?”</p>
<p>How would I? I always thought he was a virgin when I took him to bed...</p>
<p>“I hope you at least used a condom with her!”</p>
<p>“You and your fucking condoms!”</p>
<p>“Elio, people are dying...” My voice breaks. I'm not sure if Rock Hudson is still alive in 1987. Or Freddy Mercury. I usually would google it but that's not an option here.</p>
<p>I remember the men I saw and will see in New York. The protests and funerals I read about in the papers and saw/will see sometimes on TV. I remember thinking one of the guys might have sucked me off in a bathroom in the village. But I always kept my distance. I was a young father, a respectable scholar trying to make my way in the academic world.</p>
<p>I couldn't be a faggot.</p>
<p>People even stopped drinking from the same glass. Gay people didn't get decent funerals. Bodies lay unclaimed. It was a new apartheid. And I was trying to pass for white. At all costs.</p>
<p>This boy here can't know about any of it.</p>
<p>But were we really so careless back then?</p>
<p>He stares at me and some of the anger in his face is gone.</p>
<p>“You really worry about me.” He says. It sounds baffled. “Why?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Elio. Because I care about you.” Isn't it obvious?</p>
<p>“As much as you care about... Micol?”</p>
<p>Hearing him say her name feels surreal. And wrong. I should never have told him. Too late I realize that I might have made a huge mistake.</p>
<p>“That's different. You wouldn't understand.”</p>
<p>“Oh, of course not, because I'm just a boy you thought you could seduce and then discard somewhere in Italy during your little outing to the old world. And you dare say you care about me!”</p>
<p>It hurts that what he says might have been the truth 20 years ago.</p>
<p>“In a few weeks you'll go back to your fiancee and marry her and you'll forget me. You don't even want to worry if I gave you some disease when you fuck her! You just want to forget me, your dirty little secret from Italy. You'll never tell her you met me and had me. You'll forget me!”</p>
<p>And he runs out of the room and down the stairs, slamming the huge old door so hard that the sound echoes through the big house. A moment later I hear his bike on the gravel outside.</p>
<p>Oh, Elio, if you only knew... I'll never forget you.</p>
<p>But I also never told Micol about him. I'm never sure what she makes of Elio since he crept tentatively back into our life five years ago. Or since I let him slip in, little by little.</p>
<p>She's never met him in person but she knows I'm visiting him during my stay in Italy. And I allowed myself to talk more and more often about him. Once, we watched one of his concerts on TV. I was proud when she said afterwards that he was very good. I own a few of his recordings and I don't hide them.</p>
<p>But she never asked about this summer.</p>
<p>She's the mother of my children and doesn't know that I like men too. </p>
<p>She doesn't know me at all.</p>
<p>I fall back into my empty bed. Elio could've been be in it right now if I hadn't been so damned responsible and mature. He was here and he was willing! Why do I have to be like this?</p>
<p>Because he could be Alex. Alex, who wanted to tell me something when he'll meet me in New York in 20 years. Do I want my eldest to get fucked by some random older stranger without even the barest talk beforehand? No!</p>
<p>I've done it too often to be able to enjoy it anymore. I want to spare him.</p>
<p>I want to spare Elio, too. I want to spare him the heartbreak, the disappointment, the despair.</p>
<p>The fear of having caught it. The plague we had not even a name for back then.</p>
<p>But how can I do that when I also want him so desperately? When I know that we need this summer...</p>
<p>But do we?</p>
<p>Or is it just <i>me</i> who needs it?</p>
<p>Shouldn't I be happy that Elio has Marzia? A smart, beautiful girl his age, someone he's known for a long time and trusts. Someone he could be happy with if I don't break his heart.</p>
<p>If I truly love him like I always thought – shouldn't I try to get these two together?</p>
<p>And what about my own life? I've already mentioned Micol to two people here. Because I thought they deserved honesty. Doesn't my wife deserve honesty as well?</p>
<p>If we shall have a future, doesn't she deserve to know who she'll marry and have kids with?</p>
<p>I must have fallen asleep because when I open my eyes again the sun is shining into my room. I hear shrieks from the garden and when I look out the window I can glimpse two people in the pool – a boy and a girl.</p>
<p>Elio and Marzia, having fun together.</p>
<p>I feel a pang of pain in my heart but try to ignore it.</p>
<p>It's for the best.</p>
<p>It's.For.The.Best.</p>
<p>Breakfast is long over and I'm not hungry anyway. I grab my bike and start to cycle around. Though I avoid Monet's Berm today.</p>
<p>Around midday, I find myself staring at the Piave Memorial while I rest in a small bar, having a coffee, a water and a cigarette.</p>
<p>Yep, I succumbed back to smoking. I think I've earned one today. I stare at the house next to the church opposite. My translator lives there. Or the translator I used back... now. When I still worked on my thesis.</p>
<p>I think this time around I can manage on my own.</p>
<p>Thinking about my book makes me suddenly want to buy something to read. So I cycle back to Crema and find the bookstore me and Elio used to go to.</p>
<p>As I browse the shelves I hear a familiar giggle. When I peek around a corner, Marzia is pressed against Elio's side while he holds up a book by someone called Antonia Pozzi. He smiles at her, winks, then opens the book.</p>
<p>As he's about to read something to hear I retread as quietly as I can.</p>
<p>I seek out one of the small bars I used to play poker at and order a drink. A real drink, not some aperitive. The only whiskey they have is Johnny Walker. The red one. Fuck, it'll have to do.</p>
<p>After the second shot I have to admit that Elio and Marzia looked cute together.</p>
<p>After the fourth I want to cry.</p>
<p>After the sixth I get angry at god and the universe in general.</p>
<p>Why is this happening to me? Am I being punished? Is it a second chance? Will I ever wake up from this? Is it a dream or a nightmare?</p>
<p>I must have said some of this out loud – very loud – because the bartender won't serve me any more.</p>
<p>Frustrated, I cycle back to the villa. It takes much longer than I thought, maybe because I'm zigzagging a lot...</p>
<p>Fuck it, maybe another accident will bring me back to my coma life in 2007? It suddenly doesn't seem that miserable at all...</p>
<p>I suddenly miss Micol fiercely. She's always been there for me, always supported me, my work, our family. Not like this little trollop here in Italy who's huge iridescent eyes and long white limbs have haunted me for 20 years. And what for? A few shags, some sloppy blow jobs.</p>
<p>And now I won't even have these because he's frolicking around with his girl.</p>
<p>It.Is.For.The.Best. I repeat to myself in time with pedaling along the country road. Maybe this will set me finally free and the coming years won't feel as if lived behind glass, separated from everyone by a secret I'm unable – read, too cowardly – to share.</p>
<p>Maybe it's the drink that gives me Dutch courage. Maybe it's the frustration with everything.</p>
<p>Maybe it's discovering Elio and Marzia making out on the piano bench when I walk into the salon, sweaty and still a quite drunk.</p>
<p>Elio stares at me while he kisses Marzia, who has her back to me, those iridescent eyes holding my gaze.</p>
<p>It's just too much. I simply snap.</p>
<p>I strut out into the corridor, grab the phone. I'm surprised by the rotary dial – haven't seen something like this in ages – but still manage to memorize Micol's number.</p>
<p>“Hey, darling.” I greet her when she picks up after the third ring.</p>
<p>“Oliver?” She sounds surprised, worried, her voice thin over the old phone. Thank god they don't have Skype yet or she might have demanded to see me. Which wouldn't have been a good idea as I sure look at least as drunk as I feel.</p>
<p>“Yeah, it's me-”</p>
<p>“Why are you calling? Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Good question. I dodge it.</p>
<p>“I wanted to hear your voice.”</p>
<p>“My voice? I thought you had enough of that.” There's bitterness in her tone.</p>
<p>I swallow. “Listen... I'm sorry what happened. The way I behaved. What I said.  How I treated you. We need to talk about it when I'm back.”</p>
<p>“What makes you think I still want to talk to you?” She bites out.</p>
<p>I sigh. “Micol, please... I know I've hurt you. But, god... this is not easy for me to say, believe me-”</p>
<p>“You've met someone.”</p>
<p>“What? No, at least not the way you mean it-”</p>
<p>“The way I mean it? How many ways are there that justify a long distance call? Have you any idea what your stammering is probably costing you?”</p>
<p>More than you think, my dear. “I'm bisexual.” I blurt out.</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>More silence.</p>
<p>“Micol...?”</p>
<p>“Is this a joke?”</p>
<p>“What? No!”</p>
<p>“You're calling me out of the blue after weeks of silence to tell me... this?!” I can't say if she's upset, angry, or both.</p>
<p>“I thought you should know...”</p>
<p>“You thought I should know?! I can't... Listen, Oliver, fuck you!”</p>
<p>And with that, 4000 miles away a receiver is slammed down. I stare at the green one in my own hand and want to hammer it against the wall. But I don't. I'm a guest here.</p>
<p>When I carefully replace the receiver I become aware of Elio and Marzia standing in the open door to the salon, staring at me.</p>
<p>“What?” I bark out.</p>
<p>“Nothing.” Elio says, and Marzia pulls him back into the darkened room.</p>
<p>I can't imagine going upstairs where they will very likely end up as well so I walk down to the beach instead, sitting on a stone for hours, listening to the waves.</p>
<p>The vastness of the ocean eventually makes my own problems look small.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm now sober enough to recap the last couple days.</p>
<p>It looks as if I've lost Elio to Marzia.</p>
<p>And I might have lost Micol, too.</p>
<p>Great!</p>
<p>At least my life can't get any worse. I'm on the up from here.</p>
<p>I watch the sunrise on the beach – gray, pink, orange, yellow - and only stumble back up to the villa around seven. I think Elio must still be asleep as I quickly take a shower.</p>
<p>He's right next door but a million miles away.</p>
<p>My whole body hurts but my head feels much clearer. I need a good breakfast, and then I will start to finally work on my thesis. I need something to hold on to and Heraclitus is right now the only constant in my life.</p>
<p>He's never let me down.</p>
<p>Yet when I come downstairs at a few minutes to eight the whole house seems to be already up – and freaking out.</p>
<p>First, I meet Mafalda, running into me, tears in her eyes. When I glimpse into the kitchen, Anchise sits at the table, shaking his head, a bottle of grappa in front of him.</p>
<p>Then I hear loud voices from the terrace.</p>
<p>“Elio, are you mad?” That is Annella.</p>
<p>“Oh, mum, just shut up!” Elio is yelling at his mother. Elio never yells at his mother. He might call her a funny witch but he never yells at her. He loves her even more than his father. Who speaks next.</p>
<p>“Elio, you had a beautiful friendship, maybe more than a friendship-”</p>
<p>“Definitely more than a friendship!”</p>
<p>“But please, you can't throw your life away like this.”</p>
<p>I stop dead in my tracks in the dining room, listening.</p>
<p>“I'm not throwing my life away. I'm moving to Paris with Marzia!”</p>
<p>“And what will you do there?” Annella again, her voice a little shrill. “What about finishing school? Your piano-?”</p>
<p>“Fuck school! Fuck the piano! Marzia knows people there. She'll be a model. We'll meet a lot of crazy famous people. It will be great! Not like... this. Dinner drudgery and those pretentious friends of yours and these summer interns lusting after me.”</p>
<p>“You wish!” Annella barks out a laugh.</p>
<p>“What do you even know? You always read and read and give dinner parties and chat to your friends... Maynard lusted after me and now it's Oliver!”</p>
<p>“Darling, please-”</p>
<p>“I'm moving to Paris with Marzia. And there's nothing you can do about it!”</p>
<p>“There's actually quite a lot we can do about it.” Sami sounds as if he tries to stay reasonable but it's a tough challenge. “You are still only seventeen.”</p>
<p>“Well... I just wanted to do the decent thing. Marzia is pregnant.” And suddenly, a ball of angry energy storms past me, not even looking at me.</p>
<p>I think I hear Sami shout something and Annella starts sobbing but I'm not sure as my ears are ringing.</p>
<p>Marzia is pregnant.</p>
<p>Elio will be a father sooner than me.</p>
<p>I can't breathe.</p>
<p>Somehow, I stumble outside.</p>
<p>I've thrown my life away for this... brat. This irresponsible little shit! Who knocked Marzia up! Stupid idiot! You should have listened to me and used condoms!</p>
<p>I can't believe I ever fell for this egoistical, spoiled, selfish, stupid, rude child!</p>
<p>Running away to Paris at seventeen with his pregnant girlfriend! Without even finishing school. What kind of plan is that?</p>
<p>God, Elio... and this is the person I longed for my whole adult life? Really?</p>
<p>Have I truly been so blind?</p>
<p>Oh, Micol... I'm so sorry my love! I was never really there because I was hanging onto a chimera of love I imagined I had found – when in reality the object of my affection is just a worthless, brainless, heartless... douchebag!</p>
<p>For whom I have alienated and emotionally neglected the mother of my children.</p>
<p>I hear someone wail like a wounded animal and it takes me a moment to realize that it's me.</p>
<p>I only become aware that I'm running for the beach when I pass Vimini by the gate towards the stairs. She sits on the fence, grabbing my arm as I hurry past.</p>
<p>“Oliver?” Her little face looks concerned.</p>
<p>But I can't talk to her.</p>
<p>Because I know the day she dies. I light a candle every year. I never forgot.</p>
<p>How am I suppose to live with this knowledge?</p>
<p>Why was I sent back here?</p>
<p>It's not a second chance – it's torture.</p>
<p>I've ruined it all. This is all my fault.</p>
<p>Whatever I did differently it made Elio not fall for me but for Marzia. And that infatuation is now making him drop out of school and giving up his piano. Ruining his life, becoming a dad at seventeen.</p>
<p>And I know how much he loves music. I know that after his father's death, with his mother suffering from dementia, it's the only thing that brings beauty into his life and keeps him going...</p>
<p>And I've only thought about me! All this time I've been back here it was about me and my summer and my life and my love... and while I was bemoaning and lamenting my fate, daydreaming, Elio slipped through the gaps.</p>
<p>I've lost him – now even more than 20 years ago.</p>
<p>And I've also lost my future wife.</p>
<p>And my boys.</p>
<p>There's nothing left for me.</p>
<p>The waves are high as I reach the beach. I don't even bother to undress. I just walk into the surf, further and further out. The current starts to pull at my legs and I lose my footing on the slippery sand.</p>
<p>The next wave pulls me under.</p>
<p>I don't fight.</p>
<p>My body is heavy – both with my wet clothes and a tiredness I've never felt before.</p>
<p>I think I hear a scream but it might be a gull.</p>
<p>I taste salt water as I try to breathe.</p>
<p>Not long now...</p>
<p>But suddenly, I feel thin yet strong arms around me. My head is pulled above the water and someone pants into my ear.</p>
<p>“You fucking idiot!” </p>
<p>It's Elio.</p>
<p>He somehow drags my limp body back to shore. I see the blue sky but then everything goes dark.</p>
<p>Until I feel his lips on mine.</p>
<p>I cough. My body convulses. I taste salt water in my mouth again and spit, cough once more.</p>
<p>Elio sits back on his heels, panting, looking a lot like a wet cat.</p>
<p>I grin up at him as he punches my chest.</p>
<p>“What about Paris?” I manage to say, my voice rough.</p>
<p>“I hate you!” He screams at me.</p>
<p>“Yeah, fair enough. But Paris?”</p>
<p>“I'm not going anywhere.” He sobs, and then he pulls me into his arms and I cling to him, literally for dear life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry. We are going more and more off piste... yet maybe Oliver is doing something right after all?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They finally end up at Monet's Berm...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Maybe this will tide you over the lockdown happening all across the world. I hope you enjoy! Stay safe!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eventually, Elio pulls me up from the wet sand and I drape my arm around his narrow shoulders to steady myself. He drags me up the stairs and my legs nearly give out a few times so we have to stop until I get my breath back.</p>
<p>As we stumble over the lawn behind the villa, Mafalda, Anchise, and even Manfredi run towards us, and then Annella and Sami – still in pajamas – join them, all fussing, shouting questions both in Italian and English, reaching for me.</p>
<p>I'm almost sobbing with exhaustion by now.</p>
<p>But Elio, my knight in shining armor, fights them all off and guides me up the stairs, soothingly murmuring to me that <i>we're almost there, just one more step, that's it, you'll make it, Oliver...</i></p>
<p>When we reach my room – his room – I want to fall into bed but Elio shoves me into the bathroom and takes off first my and then his damp clothes with a matter-of-fact attitude that bears no resistance. He drops our shoes, trousers and shirts, socks and boxers in a soggy pile on the tiled floor, then helps me into the tub where I crouch down, too tired to keep standing. He gets in behind me, fumbles with the taps, and suddenly warm water runs down my back. I rest my brow against my pulled-up knees, closing my eyes while Elio washes me, hair and body, using the chamomile soap I searched for everywhere in the US after my return because the scent reminded me of my Arcadia...</p>
<p>Eventually, all the salt, sand, and grime of the sea are gone, washed down the drain. I sway on my feet as Elio towels me off and then I kind of sleepwalk over to the bed.</p>
<p>I don't even remember getting into it.</p>
<p>Yet I wake a few times over the day. Every time, Elio is there, sitting next to me, his back against the headboard, his earphones on, listening to his Walkman. </p>
<p>He feels my brow, gives me some water to sip, and I go under again.</p>
<p>When I finally wake from my catatonic state, it's dark outside. The room is just lit by the small lamp on the desk beneath the window.</p>
<p>Elio is still sitting next to me, and now I notice that he's wearing one of my shirts – the pale-blue one he'd christened Billowy and which I left him... will leave him... when I fly back.</p>
<p>When I flew back.</p>
<p>If I fly back.</p>
<p>My head hurts. I can't think.</p>
<p>“Elio...” I croak out and he turns towards me, trying to hide his obvious worry behind a fake smile.</p>
<p>“You need to eat!” He declares as he becomes aware that I've joined the living again, leans over me and puts a plate with some sort of cake between us on the sheets. He feeds me tiny morsels with his delicate fingers because apparently I need sugar to perk up again. The cake is very sweet ant tastes of nuts and almonds. His fingers taste of salty sweat and pencil.</p>
<p>I actually feel a bit better after the slice is gone.</p>
<p>Elio pours me another glass of water and after I've downed it he looks at me, his expression serious.</p>
<p>“So, what was that?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” I ask. My headache gets worse, pain pulsating in my temples.</p>
<p>“Don't take me for an idiot, Oliver!” Elio snaps. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are dark with anger. “Did you try to kill yourself?”</p>
<p>Did I?</p>
<p>I try to remember. It comes back in frozen images: Elio and Marzia in bed; my phone call to Micol; Elio telling his parents that he'll move to Paris with Marzia. That Marzia is pregnant.</p>
<p>Me, running towards the shore. The waves pulling me under... peace, quiet... no air!</p>
<p>“I don't know...”</p>
<p>Elio makes an impatient sound, a mixture of a huff and a groan.</p>
<p>“What is it with you, Oliver?”</p>
<p>“I don't know.”</p>
<p>“You sound like a broken record!”</p>
<p>“It's just... all a bit much...” It's as close to the truth as I dare to let on.</p>
<p>“I agree.” The look on his face is fierce.</p>
<p>I try to sit up. The room spins a little but then my vision stabilizes. “Elio, please, don't throw your life away. You're way too young to be a father, and Marzia is way too young to be-”</p>
<p>“I lied!” He blurts out and the room starts to spin again.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I lied. There's no baby. I just said it to upset my parents, for them to allow me to go away from here. I'm so sorry...”</p>
<p>And he throws himself into my arms and I barely catch him as heavy sobs shake his small frame.</p>
<p>“Elio...” I stroke his curls, his back, feeling his spine beneath the fabric of my shirt.</p>
<p>“I'm so sorry, Oliver, I was so stupid, and you almost died, how can I forgive myself, how can you forgive me-”</p>
<p>“Shhh, Elio, there's no need for forgiveness...”</p>
<p>He calms down a little, looks up at me through wet lashes, wipes his snotty nose with the back of his left hand. “It's just, they always go<i> 'Play piano! Practice! Do your homework! Learn, learn, learn! This is our only son, Elio, he's a protege, one day he'll be a great composer and pianist'</i>-”</p>
<p>“One day you <i>will</i> be a great composer and pianist!” </p>
<p>I remember that he played here at the Scala, with the New York philharmonic orchestra, gave concerts at the Royal Albert Hall...</p>
<p>“Not you as well! God! Has anyone ever thought that maybe I just want to be a normal teenager, doing normal teenage stuff? Getting drunk with my friends, going out dancing, sleeping with girls, sleeping with boys-” His mouth snaps shut as he realizes what he's just said.</p>
<p>I ignore his confession. As if it could shock me! What <i>shocks </i>me is that maybe I don't know Elio as well as I thought. Didn't know him...</p>
<p>Does he really feel like this? Trapped? Does he not like his piano, writing classical music? Or is this just a phase? </p>
<p>I know a lot about phases with teenagers. Mine had a basketball phase, a hockey phase, a grunge phase (god, the smell of unwashed hair and damp socks against which no Febreze would work wafting through the house!)... it'll pass.</p>
<p>“Elio,” I say to him as I said to Alex when he cut holes in all his jeans and dyed his blond hair black; as I said to Tommy when he crashed his first car. It's a tone every parent adopts now and then. “You 're maybe a bit frustrated right now. Give it a few weeks and you'll see things differently-”</p>
<p>“You sound like my mum!”</p>
<p>I doubt that's a good thing. Okay, change of strategy. Let him realize himself what a mistake he's making.</p>
<p>“So, how would that work, you and Marzia, in Paris? Tell me, what's your plan?”</p>
<p>He shrugs. I think I even see a pout on his face as his lower lip juts out.</p>
<p>“How will you earn money? Will you get a job? Where would you live?”</p>
<p>“Dunno.”</p>
<p>“Well, I mean, it's your life.” I keep looking at him as if waiting for an answer.</p>
<p>“It's just...,” he throws his hands in the air, “I feel like I'm suffocating here. With my parents and their friends and all this dinner drudgery and the academic talk and the classical music... this is not normal, right?”</p>
<p>“It's a life many would want to lead.”</p>
<p>“Yes, many people <i>your</i> age. Or my parents' age. But what about <i>me</i>?”</p>
<p>“You really think screwing around, getting drunk every night and dropping out of school is a recipe for an exciting life? I promise you'll regret it in twelve months, when all your friends graduate and start out to make something of themselves while you're stuck in a shitty job, in a shitty flat share, with a girlfriend you're already bored off-”</p>
<p>“Shut up!”</p>
<p>“Elio, that piece you played the other night – that was so beautiful. So full of emotion. You have more than talent, you have a gift. Please, don't throw it away.”</p>
<p>“Why are we talking about me anyway when you're the one who tried to drown himself?” He bites out.</p>
<p>This brings me back to my ruined life which I tried to ignore by focusing on Elio. </p>
<p>“Because I don't want you to make the same mistakes that I made. Don't throw away your dreams. Don't try to fit in at any cost. Don't compromise. You're something special.”</p>
<p>He frowns.</p>
<p>“But why should I live other peoples' dreams?”</p>
<p>“Are they really?”</p>
<p>He shrugs, the universal teenage gesture.</p>
<p>“Just, don't rush things. Promise me you'll stay here as long as I do. For the summer.” I smile at him.</p>
<p>Reluctantly, he nods.</p>
<p>“You can keep my shirt.” I tell him, pointing at his chest. “I like you wearing it.”</p>
<p>He blushes. “Really?”</p>
<p>“Really.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, the air feels heavy around us.</p>
<p>“So, you and Marzia...?”</p>
<p>He makes a very Gallic gesture with his hands. “We've known each other for ages. And we had nothing better to do. So we thought, lets give it a go... but, I don't think it's what I really want right now.” His eyes have gone even darker. But maybe it's the fading light?</p>
<p>Or maybe not.</p>
<p>“Can I kiss you?” I blurt out, overwhelmed by how close he is, how cute he looks, my shirt covering his skin...</p>
<p>He looks up at me, dark eyes wide.</p>
<p>“Yes, please.”</p>
<p>So I lean in. He tastes like the sea that swallowed me, with a hint of almonds and sugar. His lips are soft and his tongue is eager, pushing into my mouth with more enthusiasm than skill.</p>
<p>I grin. I remember <i>how</i> enthusiastic he could get...</p>
<p>“God, I missed this.” I whisper against his mouth.</p>
<p>He pulls back.</p>
<p>“We only kissed once before.”</p>
<p>Shit! I have to learn to keep my mouth shut.</p>
<p>“But that was very... sensual. It made an impression.”</p>
<p>“Did it?” </p>
<p>He's in my lap again, grinding down against me, and I become quite aware that I'm naked beneath the sheet.</p>
<p>“So you think I'm a good kisser?”</p>
<p>“Elio... Elio... we need to stop.”</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Why?” He whines, bouncing up and down. Not good!</p>
<p>“Because I don't want it like this. My head hurts.” He snorts a laugh. “No, it's true. I want to make this good for you. For both of us.”</p>
<p>He calms down a little, softly headbutts my left shoulder. His fingers stroke my chest until they touch my Star of David.</p>
<p>“I used to have one of these.” He says, biting my collarbone.</p>
<p>I swallow. I know.</p>
<p>“How come you never wear it?”</p>
<p>“My mother... she wants us to be Jews of discretion.” His fingers play with my chain.</p>
<p>“Well, I'm sure she's just worried.”</p>
<p>“Yes, she worries all the time.” Elio exhales, leans back. “I'm not a baby. I'm seventeen.”</p>
<p>“You're her only child. You're all she has.”</p>
<p>He doesn't say anything to that. My head is killing me by now.</p>
<p>“Let's lie down.”</p>
<p>Elio throws himself onto me and slides beneath the sheet, pressing his body against my naked skin after turning off the light.</p>
<p>“Better now?” He asks.</p>
<p>Well, that depends...</p>
<p>Because his naughty, curious hands start to roam my body.</p>
<p>“Elio.” It's a warning.</p>
<p>He giggles but removes his hand.</p>
<p>“My mother was reading a French fifteenth century novel to me the other day...”</p>
<p>“About the knight who wonders if he should speak or die.” I nod.</p>
<p>Elio leans up on his elbow.</p>
<p>“How do you know that?”</p>
<p>“Oh... she told me.”</p>
<p>“Why would she?”</p>
<p>“No idea, ask her.” When Elio stays silent I ask. “So, does he, or doesn't he?”</p>
<p>“He fudges.” The tip of his index finger travels down my right arm. “I know something is going on with you. But I'm waiting for you to speak.”</p>
<p>When I swallow it's too loud in the quiet room.</p>
<p>“Just give me a little time. Give <i>us</i> a little time.” I whisper.</p>
<p>“But we are on <i>borrowed</i> time, Oliver. This summer will end. Don't wait too long. Or I might slip through your fingers.”</p>
<p>He kisses my cheek, then snuggles up against me.</p>
<p>I close my eyes and instantly fall asleep.</p>
<p>When I wake the next morning Elio is gone. But Billowy is draped over the bedpost with a piece of paper stuck to it.</p>
<p><i>'To Oliver, from Elio.'</i> I grin as I put it on, walking downstairs.</p>
<p>The family is sitting on the terrace.</p>
<p>“Oliver!” Both Annella and Sami exclaim.</p>
<p>“Elio has told us everything. A cramp during swimming can be very dangerous.”</p>
<p>I glance at Elio who's licking Nutella from the corner of his mouth, the tip of his wet tongue very pink.</p>
<p>“Yes, I was lucky that your son happened to be at hand.” I give him my broadest smile. He smiles right back.</p>
<p>I sit down next to him, slip off my espadrilles and slide my foot over his below the table. He's barefeet.</p>
<p>When I press my heel against his arch, he coughs, spitting out chewed bits of his crepes.</p>
<p>“Elio!” Annella chides him.</p>
<p>He quickly takes up a napkin and hides his face in it. His cheeks have turned crimson as my toes stroke his.</p>
<p>I wonder if he'd told them about Marzia. But I have no time to ask because suddenly red blood seeps through the napkin.</p>
<p>Elio has one of his nosebleeds.</p>
<p>I know this happens a lot and is quite harmless – my sons had plenty of them too. But they always shocked me. I'm not good with blood. Usually, Micol had to deal with it. She always jokes that she fears me passing out and wonders how I managed to stay upright during two births...</p>
<p>Elio jumps up and runs inside. I hear him opening the fridge.</p>
<p>I want to follow him to check on him but Sami holds me back.</p>
<p>“Are you going to town today, Oliver? Could you pick up a book I've ordered?”</p>
<p>“Of course.” I take one last bite of my baguette, then run inside to search for Elio.</p>
<p>I find him in the nook next to the salon where Sami keeps his drink, a towel filled with ice cubes pressed against his face.</p>
<p>I sit down next to him on the floor and start to massage his foot.</p>
<p>“Ouch.” He sighs as his bones crack beneath my fingers.</p>
<p>“Believe me, it helps. And don't put your head back. Lean forward, let the blood drip out.”</p>
<p>“What kind of doctor are you going to be? I thought ancient philosophy.”</p>
<p>“It's just... I just happen to know, okay?”</p>
<p>Elio shrugs again. It's getting infuriating.</p>
<p>“Did you tell your parents... about Marzia.”</p>
<p>Elio removes the towel, looks at it as if it holds an answer.</p>
<p>“Yeah... I said it was false alarm. They were more relieved than angry.”</p>
<p>I nod. I can feel them. God, just thinking about Tommy getting his girlfriend pregnant makes my mind go totally blank. I still vividly remember changing <i>his</i> nappies – he's way too young to do that himself. A mere child.</p>
<p>So what about Elio? I'm not sure I want to follow that line of thought.</p>
<p>“Your dad asked me to go to town for him and collect a book.” I tell him, still massaging his foot.</p>
<p>“Oh, I can come with you. I have nothing else to do.”</p>
<p>“You should rest after your nosebleed.”</p>
<p>But Elio just sticks out his tongue, then pulls his foot away.</p>
<p>“I'm fine. Come on, let's go.”</p>
<p>At the gate, we meet Marzia and Chiara. Elio says something in Italian and off we bike, racing each other, laughing. The girls yell after us but we don't stop.</p>
<p>We go to the same bookshop where I saw Elio with Marzia. Sami has ordered a book on Praxiteles. I'm once again reminded to start with my own work, but then Elio pulls me between two rows of shelves in the poetry section and starts to kiss me until I'm breathless.</p>
<p>“Let me buy you a book!” He whispers against my neck, one of his sly hands quickly squeezing my ass. </p>
<p>I can only nod, dumbfounded by this sexy boy – almost man - pressing himself against me.</p>
<p>It's not Armance that he chooses. It's a volume of poems by Shelley.</p>
<p>“Listen.” He opens it, reads: “<i>When I arose and saw the dawn,</i><br/>
<i>I sighed for thee;</i><br/>
<i>When light rode high, and the dew was gone,</i><br/>
<i>And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,</i><br/>
<i>And the weary day turned to his rest,</i><br/>
<i>Lingering like an unloved guest.</i><br/>
<i>I sighed for thee.</i>”</p>
<p>He looks up at me from the page. I feel my heart beat faster.</p>
<p>Elio tells the bookseller to put both books on his father's tab. Then he asks for a pen.</p>
<p>“So you won't forget who gave this to you.” He sounds very determined.</p>
<p>When I look at his inscription it's not the words I expected to see. Instead I read:</p>
<p>
  <i>'Cor Cordium, heart of hearts. Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange.' </i>
</p>
<p>“It is-”</p>
<p>“The Tempest, I know. It's written on Shelley's grave in Rome.” I stare down at the page and wonder if my Armance just turned to dust in my nightstand back home...</p>
<p>Elio beams at me. But when he realizes my confusion, he frowns.</p>
<p>“Don't you like it? Do you think it's insensitive, thinking of your last endeavor in the sea-”</p>
<p>“It's beautiful, thank you, Elio. Only, not what I expected.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” His smile is back, maybe even more radiant than before.</p>
<p>On our way back to the villa Elio stops at the small track leading up to Monet's Berm.</p>
<p>“You asked me where this led to.” He starts.</p>
<p>“Yes.” I brake as well.</p>
<p>“Would you like to see?” He seems suddenly shy.</p>
<p>“Of course.” He will finally reveal something deeply personal to me. We are on the right track, not just figuratively.</p>
<p>When we arrive at the shallow pond hidden by trees I let him go in first. He turns towards me, reaching out with both arms as if he wants to embrace the whole world.</p>
<p>“This is my spot. I can't remember the number of books I've read here...”</p>
<p>I dip my toes into the icy water.</p>
<p>“It's freezing.” It makes Elio laugh.</p>
<p>“The water comes down from the mountains.” He explains.</p>
<p>“Is there anything you don't know?”</p>
<p>“I know nothing, Oliver.” He steps up to me, stares into my eyes. Defiant.</p>
<p>“Why are you always putting yourself down? Your talent, your intelligence...”</p>
<p>“What good is all that?” He sighs, turns away. “My talent, my intelligence haven't got me where I want to be.”</p>
<p>“Paris?”</p>
<p>“Your bed, you idiot!” And with that he swirls back around, a devilish grin on his face as he uses both his hands to splash water all over me.</p>
<p>I have to admit, I squeal. Then I chase him.</p>
<p>Soon, we are both drenched.</p>
<p>We end up lying side by side on the grass, the sun warming our wet bodies.</p>
<p>I remember this but also not. This is different from my memory. Is that good or bad?</p>
<p>My thoughts grind to a halt when Elio leans over and starts kissing me.</p>
<p>I touch him this time, his hair, his cheek, his neck, my hand curling around its base. Elio moans low and I feel him shiver.</p>
<p>God, please, yes...</p>
<p>My other hand strokes his back, lower, lower, until it finds the swell of his ass. I only hesitate a second before pushing my fingers inside the waistband of his shorts.</p>
<p>As he presses himself against me there's no mistaking what a state he's in. His slim cock is rock-hard against my hip.</p>
<p>I feel a sharp sting to the abrasion on my side, still not fully healed. Anchise's homemade remedy might have made it even worse. But somehow this kind of pain is grounding.</p>
<p>I know I should stop Elio but I can't remember why.</p>
<p>Instead, my index finger slips between his ass cheeks, finds his virgin pucker, and presses against it. Elio's hips stutter and he groans, rubbing his face against the side of my neck.</p>
<p>Warm dampness spreads all over my thigh.</p>
<p>“Fuck!” Elio exhales.</p>
<p>I bite the inside of my mouth not to chuckle, holding him against me but removing my finger.</p>
<p>“Did you just-”</p>
<p>“Don't say it. Please, don't say it.” His face feels hot against my skin.</p>
<p>“I won't say it.” I promise.</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>I both wish and fear that he'll take care of me now in return but after a minute or two I realize that Elio's breath has evened out and his body has gone slack.</p>
<p>He's fallen asleep on top of me.</p>
<p>I let him rest, holding him in my arms. </p>
<p>I know we'll make love soon.</p>
<p>Very soon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's a proven fact that Elio merely lasts 30 seconds</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Midnight</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, this chapter is mostly smut. I guess we all need it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When we return to the villa late afternoon, Elio grins sheepishly and announces he'll have a shower. He uses the door to his small room, only to kick open the bathroom door ten seconds later, stark naked.</p>
<p>“You coming?”</p>
<p>I'm close to short-circuiting, seeing him totally naked for the first time while not half-dizzy from just trying to drown myself.</p>
<p>He looks so... young.</p>
<p>Lean, almost hairless body, soft rosy cock, tiny nipples.</p>
<p>Did he really look that young in 1987?</p>
<p>I feel a little sick that it turns me on this much.</p>
<p>“I... uhm... ugh...”</p>
<p>He leans against the doorframe, his right hip jutting out, grins.</p>
<p>“Come on. You're all sweaty. And there's grass in your hair.”</p>
<p>I touch my fringe as he saunters over – literally saunters, swinging his narrow hips! - and rakes his hand through my hair.</p>
<p>“See?” He holds up a few dried straws.</p>
<p>I can only swallow. This close, I can smell him. And there's no hint of chamomile soap any longer. He smells like dried cum and sweat and sun and earth. He smells like sex, way more mature than he looks.</p>
<p>So I give in and let him drag me into the bathroom.</p>
<p>“Take this off.” He starts to unbutton my shirt, his fingers caressing the skin he exposes.</p>
<p>“You're so hairy.” He says, grinning a little.</p>
<p>The contrast between our bodies is huge indeed.</p>
<p>I feel a little shy when I pull down my shorts and boxers, trying to hide my crotch with my hands.</p>
<p>Elio chuckles but then his eyes go wide as I reach for a towel.</p>
<p>He pulls me into the bathtub once more but now he presses his chest against mine, our soft cocks touching without any barrier between them.</p>
<p>They don't stay soft for long.</p>
<p>Elio's soapy hand wraps around me and as he starts to stroke, his pianist fingers barely reaching around my girth, I forget my worries.</p>
<p>Age is just a number, right?</p>
<p>Twenty years was yesterday, and yesterday was just earlier this morning, and morning seemed light-years away...</p>
<p>I'm 44 but also 24 right now, and Elio is 17 but I remember him at 37 as well... and where's the point, really? He wants this. I want this, too.</p>
<p>So I close my eyes and just allow myself to feel, my body to take over my brain, to just enjoy...</p>
<p>Elio's mouth seeks mine, swallowing my cry as I come way too fast (I could say it's to make him feel better about earlier but that would be a lie. It's simply been 20 years since Elio got me off in the shower – and it shows).</p>
<p>Afterwards, I want to wash, but he coughs, looks down, and I realize that he's still rock-hard despite having come once today already.</p>
<p>God, teenagers! What a menace.</p>
<p>When I start to warp my hand around him he whispers: “Or your mouth...?”</p>
<p>I look into his face, water dripping from his flattened curls, his mouth slack, eyes drooping.</p>
<p>I'd love to taste him. But-</p>
<p>Fuck it! He asked for it. So I sink to my knees and swallow him down in one go. It's been twenty years since I last did this with him and I'm a bit out of practice – but then it turns out to be like riding a bike.</p>
<p>I suck, hard, and his taste fills my mouth despite the soap and gushing water all around us: sweet-sour and delicious.</p>
<p>I can't stop myself. Even as I gag I lick and suck and swallow. Elio grabs my shoulder, my hair, and only about a minute in he cries out, topples over, almost slips so I grab his thigh as his cock is rammed down my throat.</p>
<p>I love it.</p>
<p>I swear I can feel his cum sliding down my esophagus.</p>
<p>Elio sits down next to me and we both crouch into the tub, kissing. It's wet and sloppy until we slow down, just licking into each others mouth.</p>
<p>“Fuck me tonight.” He whispers before biting down on my bottom lip.</p>
<p>I'm saved to answer by the boiler gurgling and then the water suddenly turns icy.</p>
<p>Now we both scream as we hop out of the tub. Toweling turns into a prank fight as we try to whip each other with our towels, Elio chasing me round and round both our rooms until we finally fall onto the bed. I allow him to tickle me, surrendering.</p>
<p>“I mean it. Fuck me at midnight. My parents are expecting guests but we'll just sneak off and then you can have me.” He looks sincere and only a little afraid.</p>
<p>“I mean it! I want you to be my first. I want to remember you. Always.”</p>
<p>My heart breaks, shattering into tiny pieces.</p>
<p>All I can do is nod.</p>
<p>Really, what else am I supposed to do? This is my fate. Our fate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We go downstairs when we hear a car on the gravel. I've never met the couple arriving – the last time I fled the villa to avoid them.</p>
<p>An openly gay couple. It would have been too much for me 20 years ago when I still battled with my feelings for Elio.</p>
<p>But now I let Elio introduce me to Isaac and Mounir.</p>
<p>They are nice. Sophisticated. Sharp.</p>
<p>Elio leads them over to where the aperitif is served but then Sami pulls him aside. They argue. I walk over to them.</p>
<p>“But they've already met me.” Elio stage-whispers.</p>
<p>“We talked about this, Elio. They send you the shirt from Miami.”</p>
<p>“Papa, it would look like a put up job.” Elio seems truly frantic, stomping his foot on the ground. I decide to intervene.</p>
<p>“I'd like to see it.”</p>
<p>Sami smiles at me.</p>
<p>“Okay, if Oliver thinks I look like a scarecrow in it-”</p>
<p>“Just show me, for god's sake!”</p>
<p>We run up the stairs to our room and there Elio pulls a garish shirt from the wardrobe, printed with huge blue and pink flowers.</p>
<p>But when he puts it on and tucks it into the waistband of his jeans, it looks surprisingly good. I tell him.</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“Really.”</p>
<p>Elio smirks as we go back downstairs again.</p>
<p>Dinner is fun. We laugh a lot. Both Isaac and Mounir are very charming. The wine is flowing freely.</p>
<p>I have to admit, they seem like a happy couple, untouched by the harsh realities of gay life in the 80s. They bicker, but it's affectionate, wordlessly passing each other dishes or refilling the others glass. Well attuned to each other.</p>
<p>I wonder if Elio and I will be like this? Would have been like this twenty years from now if we stay together. Stayed together. Whatever.</p>
<p>I swallow these gloomy thoughts with another glass of Chianti.</p>
<p>Eventually, Elio even plays piano, serenading us with a beautiful piece by Ravel I think. I get hard from just watching him, crossing my legs to hide my boner.</p>
<p>When he's finished, Elio announces that he's tired and says goodnight, kissing everyone on the cheek. Everyone but me.</p>
<p>I wait a prudent ten minutes until I follow him upstairs.</p>
<p>He's sitting on my bed, naked from the waist up as he'd shed his shirt. I smile when I see him and he smiles back, a little uncertain though.</p>
<p>“Elio.” I exhale.</p>
<p>He stares down at his naked feet.</p>
<p>I sit next to him and take his face in my hands. Elio expects me going for his mouth but I start kissing his forehead, working my way down over his eye-lids and the freckled ridge of his nose to finally arrive at my destination.</p>
<p>He tastes of wine, tiramisu, and desperation.</p>
<p>We just kiss for a long time until he climbs in my lap.</p>
<p>“Please...”</p>
<p>I kiss down his sternum and his hands claw onto my shoulders, rake through my hair until he slides off me and lies back on the mattress across the bed, his narrow chest rising and falling with his quickened breath, a blush creeping down his neck.</p>
<p>I allow myself to take him in for a second, wet swollen lips parted, eyes dark and hooded, legs spread for me.</p>
<p>As he starts to unbutton his jeans I pull my shirt over my head. My Star of David drops onto Elio's belly and he grabs it and puts it in his mouth.</p>
<p>I stare, almost keeling over as I pull my belt from its loops and push my pants down.</p>
<p>Suddenly, we are both naked, and I'm caging his slim body with mine.</p>
<p>We kiss again, harsh and sloppy, and I hear Elio moan my name as I lower my hips to grind against him. We are both hard and leaking so it's deliciously slippery as we rub our cocks together.</p>
<p>Could this be enough?</p>
<p>No, not for Elio.</p>
<p>He suddenly pushes me off and I sit back, worried for a second; but then he gets on his hands and knees and spreads his legs again, exposing himself as he lowers his shoulders and arches his back.</p>
<p>God, he has such a pretty hole.</p>
<p>Dark-pink, sprinkled with a dust of fine black hair around it, a fuzz covering his taint up to his full balls. </p>
<p>I dive forward and Elio yelps.</p>
<p>“Fuuck!”</p>
<p>He didn't expect that but I remember how much he loved me eating him once he'd discovered that this was in fact an option, so I continue, pumping his heavy cock simultaneously. He almost breaks my nose with his enthusiastic, uninhibited grinds against my face.</p>
<p>I pull back when I feel him swell, pinching the base of his cock until he shrieks.</p>
<p>“Ouch.”</p>
<p>“Calm down.” I tell him, watching a string of spit connecting my mouth with his twitching little pucker.</p>
<p>“Just fuck me, Oliver.” He looks over his shoulder, his face blotchy, eyes unfocused.</p>
<p>As if on autopilot, I grab my wallet from the nightstand, take out the condom I keep in there. Elio rolls his eyes but says nothing.</p>
<p>“Lube?”</p>
<p>“I went to the pharmacy in town the other day but they only sell it over the counter and I... didn't dare to ask.” He sounds embarrassed.</p>
<p>“It's okay.” I make a mental note to buy some. And more condoms. Then I dig out my suntan lotion from my backpack. “I guess this will do.”</p>
<p>Soon, the room smells heavily of coconut. I actually can't remember what we used twenty years ago but I'm sure it was something different. Otherwise I would be suffering from skin cancer by now as I'd been unable to ever rub that stuff onto my body again.</p>
<p>I slowly work one, then two fingers deep into Elio's body. He hisses a little at first but then relaxes against my intrusion. When I feel his velvety insides I almost collapse and have to pinch my own dick.</p>
<p>“I'm ready... god, I'm ready, Oliver.” Elio moans eventually and I withdraw. “How do you want me?”</p>
<p>I know I should take him like this, that it would be much more comfortable for his first time, but I'm utterly selfish by now.</p>
<p>I want to see him when I enter him for the first time.</p>
<p>“Turn around, on your back, pull your knees up and spread.”</p>
<p>Elio does without any shyness, looking up at me so trusting that it makes my mouth go dry. When he's fully, utterly exposed and open I push a pillow beneath his ass, drizzle some more coconut lotion on my throbbing cock, line up and hold his gaze.</p>
<p>He screws his eyes shut as my cockhead slides past the first ring of muscle, his mouth falling open, forming a perfect O.</p>
<p>I stop. Stare. Wait. Move a little.</p>
<p>“Shit! Shit, Oliver!”</p>
<p>I still, give him time. When he's breathing normally and has opened his eyes again, I dare to sink deeper.</p>
<p>God, he's so tight.</p>
<p>Because I'm his first.</p>
<p>I almost come at that thought.</p>
<p>Carefully, I push in until I bottom out. I just stay inside him, allowing Elio adjust.</p>
<p>“You're almost splitting me in half.” He whispers, voice soft and full of awe. I take his right hand and bring it between his cheeks so he can touch and feel the point where our bodies are connected in the most intimate way two male bodies can become one.</p>
<p>His fingers rub his stretched rim, sliding through the slippery mess of spit, lotion and precome assembled there.</p>
<p>It's the hottest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.</p>
<p>“Does it feel good, baby?” I ask.</p>
<p>He just nods, grinning up at me as my eyes dart up to his face. I still see a hint of pain in his features but there's also lust, desire, want. I entwine our fingers, bring his hand up to kiss his knuckles. It smells of our combined musk and sex sweat.</p>
<p>“Can I move?”</p>
<p>He just nods again, apparently rendered speechless.</p>
<p>“God, you feel so good. You're so fucking tight for me, baby. I can't believe I'm your first. That no one else has ever been inside you. You've the prettiest little hole I've ever seen.”</p>
<p>“Fuck...” He groans, his body relaxing more as I start to fuck him in earnest. Then his whole body suddenly jolts.</p>
<p>“Is that your spot? You want me to fuck you right there? Rub against you right there?” I accentuate my questions with probing thrusts and Elio's eyes literally roll back in their sockets as one hand fists the sheets and the other claws to mine so hard I fear he might break my fingers.</p>
<p>I push my free hand between the small of Elio's back and the pillow supporting his hips and start to plow into him like mad. I don't hold back and he's like a rag doll beneath me, his body bouncing on the mattress as I fuck the living daylight out of him. I'm sure I can see my cock move inside his stomach. He must feel me in his guts. I think he screams, and I might do the same, uttering profanities like 'God' and 'Fuck' and telling him to take it.</p>
<p>Which he does.</p>
<p>Until I can feel his rim flutter around me. It's a blinding sensation and so I almost miss Elio's hard, purple cock twitching as he shoots a thick load of white cum all over his belly and chest.</p>
<p>The next ten seconds are a blur until I come to lying on top of Elio's body. He's utterly still but I can feel him breathe. I'm not sure I do, though.</p>
<p>Condom, I remember.</p>
<p>So I grab my dick and pull out. Elio makes a pained sound but I can only stare at his red, swollen hole – not a virgin any longer – gaping a moment before his stretched muscle tightens again.</p>
<p>If I hadn't used a condom I could watch my cum leak out. I did so back then, sometimes lazily pushing it back inside with my thumb or slurping it up, teasing Elio until he was ready for a second round.</p>
<p>We were so young and foolish back then it's a wonder we grew up to see middle-age.</p>
<p>Right now, I stare at the condom I hold between my finger, becoming aware that Elio does the same. It's quite full I note proudly. Elio leans up on his elbows, wincing a little as he reaches for it.</p>
<p>“Wow.”</p>
<p>“Shut up!”</p>
<p>I tie it off and throw it onto the floor.</p>
<p>“Mafalda always looks for signs.” Elio chides me but he's laughing a little.</p>
<p>“Make sure she doesn't find any.” I tell him as I give him my shirt to wipe off his chest.</p>
<p>“You wore this shirt the day you came here. Will you give it to me when you go?”</p>
<p>I don't want to think about that day just now. “If I go.”</p>
<p>Elio stares up at me, blissed out, eyes shiny, silently repeating my words.</p>
<p>I cuddle up against him, wrapping him up in my arms, throwing one leg over his to feel his soft cock against my inner thigh. He groans again but doesn't squirm away.</p>
<p>We fall asleep like that.</p>
<p>Until Elio's kisses wake me up, his tongue slipping into my mouth before I can protest. He rakes his hand through my chest hair, pulls it, and I can't resist, I moan.</p>
<p>What was it I said to him back then? Something utterly sloppy, embarrassingly trite for sure. That I was him and he was me... or whatever nonsense my sex-dazzled brain had come up with.</p>
<p>He'd kept playing that little game even decades later, calling me by his name to show me that he still remembered. But it never went any further than us reminiscenting nostalgic feelings I had to pretend were confined to the past.</p>
<p>I had come to hate it.</p>
<p>Instead, I've come to believe that I don't want us to become one like this. I am me and he is Elio and that's just right. I don't want to lose myself in him. I don't want him to become me. I want <i>HIM</i>. I want us to be together not as one but two. I have lived 44 years as myself and I can't – won't – deny that.</p>
<p>I want to learn who Elio is as we grow old together.</p>
<p>So I tell him the thing I never said to him but always wanted to: “I love you, Elio.”</p>
<p>He doesn't answer and I didn't expect him to. But he keeps kissing me, harder now, then climbs out of bed only to return a moment later to sit on top of me, proudly holding a box of condoms in his hand.</p>
<p>“At least I dared to buy these.”</p>
<p>I read that they contain 36. I feel my stomach drop. What is this boy expecting of me?</p>
<p>But it turns out that my mind might be 44 yet my body is 24 because it takes me only a minute to get hard again with Elio sitting in my lap. He fumbles a bit with the condom but when he has succeeded to roll it on he wastes no time to sit on my cock. I watch his body swallow me and fear I might have a coronary.</p>
<p>He rides me like I imagine him riding a heavy horse, his slim hips snapping and circling until he finds his spot again. He uses me like a dildo to pleasure himself and I have to admit that turns me on to no end.</p>
<p>I wish he would tie me to the headboard.</p>
<p>Maybe we need to talk about a few things tomorrow.</p>
<p>This time, he shoots all over my chest as I pulse inside the condom. He barely manages to slide off  before he falls asleep next to me.</p>
<p>I stare at the ceiling until I drift off into an uneasy slumber. Something is bugging me but in my exhausted, fucked-out state I can't put my finger on it...</p>
<p>Until I wake at the crack of dawn by the birds singing outside. Elio is still vast asleep next to me, my arm around his shoulder prickling from lack of circulation. I stare at his face, his profile.</p>
<p>He looks so young, so vulnerable.</p>
<p>Guilt hits me like a hammer.</p>
<p>What have I done?</p>
<p>I even told him I loved him!</p>
<p>But... what future is there for us? I still don't know how I ended up here; I might have a life somewhere else. I had a life somewhere else with a wife and two great sons.</p>
<p>I can't just stay with him in Italy! How is that supposed to work? I had my reasons to leave in 1987. And these reasons haven't changed.</p>
<p>I'm only on a three months tourist visa for fuck's sake. I haven't graduated yet. My parents would totally cut me off it they knew I was in love with a boy.</p>
<p>And despite whatever they said, I truly doubt Sami and Annella would welcome a poor, outcast academic into their family, a grown man who had seduced their only son who's still to finish high-school. Classics academia is a small world. Should I ever finish my studies I would forever be the creep who fucked Professor Perlman's underage son. I would be discredited from the beginning.</p>
<p>And I would never meet Tommy and Alex.</p>
<p>But what weighs even heavier for me right now is that I had sex with a seventeen year old boy who's life I will totally fuck up. I will leave him and break his heart. I'm not worthy of the trust he showed me last night. I will betray him – and I slept with him regardless, knowing all this!</p>
<p>I'm a monster.</p>
<p>He stirs next to me, snuggles closer. I feel sick.</p>
<p>His hand strokes my body, down my chest, lower, lower, as he slowly wakes up, pressing a kiss against my jaw.</p>
<p>“Hey...” he mumbles sleepily.</p>
<p>I want to shove him away, jump out of bed and scream. I'm disgusted with myself.</p>
<p>Yet his arm tenses around my waist. “You okay?” He blinks up at me from bleary eyes. He looks about fourteen right now. </p>
<p>He might be Tommy.</p>
<p>Or Alex, in bed with a middle-aged stranger who took advantage of his innocence...</p>
<p>But did I? How innocent is, was my Elio? He said he wanted this, wanted me...</p>
<p>I suddenly see him on the platform of Clusone train station, looking utterly lost as I board the train.</p>
<p>I see a bearded stranger in my lecture hall, cautious as he approaches me. </p>
<p>I see a slightly jaded man in his late thirties, a forlorn sadness edged into his features as he waves me good-bye in front of the villa.</p>
<p>I will ruin his life.</p>
<p>I will ruin him for any other person – men or women.</p>
<p>I'll destroy his trust in love.</p>
<p>I need to wash myself off this, of his cum still visible on my chest, of the love and adoration I can see in his eyes, feel in his touch.</p>
<p>I can't breathe. I need air.</p>
<p>“Let's go swimming.” I croak out, throwing my shirt at him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Stay home. Stay safe. Take care. I love you all :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Surprises</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The cool water surrounding my body helps a little. It feels like the sea is washing away all my shame, the disgust, the filth. It's so vast that adding my sins to it, emptying my soul in a kind of physical confession, won't bother the ocean at all. My shortcomings as a human being are drowned in it and all that is left is me feeling like the foreign matter that I am in this medium.</p>
<p>Yet it tolerates my intrusion because it knows that soon I will leave it again, there will be no trace of me or the dirt and discontent I carried into the water. My offenses mean nothing here, and that is why I can feel weightless for a moment.</p>
<p>I sense Elio somewhere to my right as I start to swim out, fighting the current to carry my corrupted self out into the open sea until the shore is but a blur in the distance and all I hear are the gulls screaming at me from a gray sky above. My Erinyes.</p>
<p>Inevitably, the waves carry me back to shore. I hope the sea accepted my penitence and allows me to walk away from it, maybe not born anew but somewhat clean and humble.</p>
<p>Elio's already drying off, staring at me from under his wet fringe. I can't read the expression on his face as he saunters over to where I stand in just my shorts, the cold breeze raising goosebumps all over my body. Or is it his gaze?</p>
<p>He looks so small and fragile in the too large jumper he wears. I want to hug him and cross my arms over my chest to stop the impulse.</p>
<p>“Will you hold what happened last night against me?” I ask.</p>
<p>“No-o.” He says but I'm not sure I can believe him.</p>
<p>We climb the stairs up to the villa in silence, creeping back into the house like thieves. And haven't I stolen the most precious thing Elio had to give – his trust?</p>
<p>Only, like with a really good thief, Elio won't know what he's lost until I've escaped. But I can't outrun my punishment.</p>
<p>He stands in the corridor, bobbing on his toes, looking at me as if he's waiting for something. But what can I do, say?</p>
<p>I just walk into my room and close the door behind me. I can hear him move through the bathroom, then the floorboards in his little room creak.</p>
<p>I stand there, paralyzed. I want to cry. But no tears come. Maybe I shed them all in the water without even realizing it, adding my salt to it as if it mattered. As if anything we do here matters.</p>
<p>Were these six weeks ever worth the suffering and misery, the guilt I had to live with for the next twenty years?</p>
<p>When I hear his door open I simply fall on my knees, burying my face in my hands. He's in front of me with two steps, cradling my head that I bury in his thigh. Next to his crotch.</p>
<p>I can feel his dick swell.</p>
<p>“Seriously?” I stare up at him.</p>
<p>“Well, I thought you were offering...” But then he sees my face and his expression changes from hopefully playful to crestfallen. “Oliver...?”</p>
<p>“Run, Elio, please, for god's sake, run. Go to Paris with Marzia, or go back to school. But leave. It's not to late to...” But for what? Not to fall for me? Not to be in love with me? </p>
<p>I suddenly wonder if he ever truly was. Besotted, yes. Like me. Infatuated. Obsessed even. But was – is – that truly love to built a future on?</p>
<p>“But I don't want to go.” He caresses my face, his fingers still cool from the ocean, his eyes the color of sea-weed. Pulling me down.</p>
<p>My siren. I know what will happen. As every sailor has known deep down from the old tales. Didn't stop them. They still followed the song. What else can you do?</p>
<p>“But I will only hurt you.” For a moment, I fear he might not get it, that he will make a stupid joke about last night and his asshole and my cock. But my Elio is much too intelligent for that. Or maybe it has nothing to do with intelligence?</p>
<p>“Hurt me all you want.” He says, and it feels as if he's giving me permission, that he, too, knows what's coming.</p>
<p>It's inevitable. But maybe it has to happen? For both of us to have once known this feeling that makes you aware that you're alive while wishing you were dead.</p>
<p>A sob shakes me and Elio's suddenly on his knees as well, holding me, stroking my back. Why is he comforting <i>me</i>? I don't deserve it, him.</p>
<p>He ends up kissing me, not my mouth but my eyelids, my nose, my forehead, my brows... but then we hear someone walking down the corridor outside and that breaks the spell.</p>
<p>We almost jump apart, then laugh, my voice a little rough, his full of sincere amusement.</p>
<p>“See you downstairs.”</p>
<p>I hear the shower a moment later as I recline on the bed, our bed, still smelling of the sex we had. There's... stuff on the sheets. I press my face into it, inhaling. I can swear I can still taste Elio.</p>
<p>God, I want this boy so badly!</p>
<p>Over breakfast, we avoid looking at each other. He even wears his shades, hiding his eyes, and makes a point of squirming in his seat until Annella raises an eyebrow and asks him what's the matter.</p>
<p>Before he can answer, I declare that I will go to town in a bit. Does anyone need anything?</p>
<p>Annella stares at me over the rim of her delicate espresso cup, and I flinch a little under her knowing gaze.</p>
<p>Sami, totally unperturbed, asks me to post some letters for him.</p>
<p>It's not that I have anything to do in town, so I park my bike at the Duomo and just idle about, walking up one narrow street and down another.</p>
<p>I'm contemplate getting a gelato when I feel a presence behind me and turn. There's Elio standing, still wearing those black glasses, arms bare in the pink-blue striped t-shirt he's wearing, plus a shorts so short I fear it might expose his black, wiry pubes.</p>
<p>There's no one else about.</p>
<p>The smile he gives me isn't innocent at all.</p>
<p>“I would kiss you if I could.” He says by a way of greeting but then he looks surprised for a second when I crowd him into an ancient doorway, grab his wrists as he tries to struggle, and press my mouth to his as my thigh parts his, offering him a firm surface to rut against.</p>
<p>My clever Elio doesn't have to be told what to do.</p>
<p>I feel his hard cock against my muscle and lean in firmer. He moans into my mouth and I'm glad he doesn't have the stamina yet to last long.</p>
<p>My mouth swallows his cry. I give him a tissue from my backpack to clean up at least superficially.</p>
<p>Now the smile on his face is dreamy.</p>
<p>“What?” He asks as he throws the sodden tissue in a bin. The pattern on his shorts hides the worst.</p>
<p>I swallow. “Fuck me, Elio.” I whisper in his ear, and as he stands frozen in the middle of the street I take my chance and slip away.</p>
<p>Where the fuck is this damned post office?</p>
<p>When I finally find it to post Sami's letters I bump into Paolo whom I know from playing poker. He invites me to a beer and one becomes three and when I'm finally allowed to leave, staggering out of the bar, it's already dark.</p>
<p>A gaze over at the clock up the Duomo spire tells me it's eleven ten.</p>
<p>Dinner will be over.</p>
<p>And I don't have a mobile to call Elio to explain where I've been. No wonder divorces soared in the 80s.</p>
<p>When I arrive at the villa half an hour later all is dark. I try to be as silent as possible as I climb the creaking stairs.</p>
<p>When I enter my bedroom, there's a shape curled up on the bed. The air is filled with a strangely fruity scent.</p>
<p>Oh, Elio...</p>
<p>I never forgot. Peaches never were the same to me. I had to tell Micol I had an allergy.</p>
<p>The incriminating evidence sits proudly on the nightstand, still dripping its peculiar filling.</p>
<p>As I sit down next to him, Elio stirs.</p>
<p>Without a word, I reach for the creamed peach.</p>
<p>The last time, I didn't taste it, and then regretted it my hole life.</p>
<p>So now I quickly take a bite while Elio watches me, in the dark. I feel his hand grab my thigh but he doesn't stop me.</p>
<p>It tastes... weird. Sweet, but also salty, a bit like if you put caviar on a slice of peach. I mean, it's not bad, but also nothing you thought you needed in your life until the boy you love jerked off into a stone fruit.</p>
<p>Cum mixed with juice runs down my fingers and I'm not sure what is stickier. But then Elio grips my hand and sucks two of my fingers in his mouth, moaning around them. I get hard in my shorts and the peach gets dropped somewhere in the sheets (we'll find it later, squashed under a pillow, the poor thing).</p>
<p>As he's already naked I pull my shorts down with my free hand but then have to pull my fingers from his hot mouth to take off my t-shirt. He starts to climb in my lap but I gently stop him and roll onto my stomach.</p>
<p>“I meant what I said... earlier.” I force myself to look at him. His mouth hangs open but his hand squeezes my ass cheek.</p>
<p>“How...?” He sounds willing but a little lost regarding the logistics.</p>
<p>Fuck, I again forgot to buy the lube.</p>
<p>So once more my sun tan lotion has to do the job. Elio's fingers are a bit uncertain at first but after a few encouraging moans from me he gets bolder.</p>
<p>I mean, it's not really rocket science.</p>
<p>When I feel loose enough, my prick soaking the sheet beneath me, I get on my hands and knees. Elio gets the condoms.</p>
<p>I can tell that he's nervous as he lines up. I reach out and grip his thigh, steadying him.</p>
<p>When he pushes in it hurts. It's been so long...</p>
<p>After we've been married for about ten years, I confessed to Micol one drunken evening when we returned from a dinner party with some people she knew through work, where the conversation had strayed to the topic of sex toys after a few bottles, that I would like her to stick something up my bum. The admission had cost me a lot, even though I played it as a joke. To my relief, Micol didn't mind. We didn't go that far to purchase a strap-on but from time to time my wife fingered me. To her own surprise, she enjoyed it, too. She said it leveled out making love, if we were both able to penetrate the other.</p>
<p>But a female finger is nothing compared to a cock. And what a teenage cock lacks in technique it makes up for in enthusiasm.</p>
<p>For Elio slams into me like I a sewing machine. And, god, I love it!</p>
<p>This time, it's me who finishes embarrassingly early. I can outright hear Elio smirk behind me.</p>
<p>When he finishes a little later, he collapses over my back and I have to remind him to pull out and pinch the condom. He falls next to me onto the mattress and is out like a light even before I can bin it.</p>
<p>We sleep in late the next morning.</p>
<p>Elio grins knowingly at me later as we bike up to Monet's Berm where we lie in the shade, reading poems to each other from the book he bought me between kisses. He falls asleep on my chest and I count his freckles.</p>
<p>I swear that I have never been happier.</p>
<p>It starts raining in the evening and so we have dinner inside. Some relatives came over but Elio and I don't really bother as we sit next to each other. He offers me the bread, I refill his glass. Annella smokes and I catch her looking at us, a small smile on her face.</p>
<p>Later, we all watch some ridiculous game show on TV but the whole household including Mafalda, Anchise and Manfredi cheer the contestants on. I don't get what it's all about but Elio laughs so hard that tears run down his cheeks and even Sami starts shouting as one team loses a silly game involving balloons and darts.</p>
<p>The evening is chilly but it's summer so no one turns on the heating. We all hunker beneath woolen blankets instead. I share mine with Elio and his hand sneaks to my crotch, massaging my dick while not taking his eyes off the screen.</p>
<p>I have to bite the inside of my cheek as not to groan with pleasure. When I can't suppress a noise, thankfully everyone attributes it to the performance on the telly.</p>
<p>Elio is dozing on my shoulder when the guests leave, so I'm spared getting up and exposing my state.</p>
<p>I end up carrying him up the stairs, still wrapped in the blanket which covers us both. Annella squeezes my arm to say good-night.</p>
<p>“Be careful with him.” She tells me.</p>
<p>I feel exposed in a whole different way. If I had shown her my stiff cock I might have actually felt better.</p>
<p>I open my mouth to say something but she turns and walks off into Sami's study before I can answer her.</p>
<p>Elio rouses when I set him down on our bed.</p>
<p>“Do you not think that we wasted so many days?” He asks sleepily, stretching like a cat.</p>
<p>Oh, Elio, I actually think we wasted years. But what good is crying over spilled milk?</p>
<p>“Lets not dwell on the past.” I say. “Lets enjoy the present.”</p>
<p>I wish I could follow my own advice. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Have you thought about college, Elio? I put all those brochures on your desk in your room the other day.” Annella says over breakfast the next morning. “Now that Paris is off the table.” She arches an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Ugh... I thought, maybe Juilliard...?” Elio glances at me from the corner of his eyes, I pretend to concentrate on my egg.</p>
<p>“What do you say, Oliver?” Elio's mother fixes me with her piercing stare.</p>
<p>“As far as I know, it's an excellent university. For music. Which I don't know much about.”</p>
<p>“Auditions are next spring.” Elio pours me some more coffee.</p>
<p>“Maybe you could stay at Oliver's place when you fly over.” Sami says from behind the Corriere della Sera.</p>
<p>“Yeah.. sure.” I feel myself blush. “It's just... I live in Boston right now. I left Columbia a year ago.”</p>
<p>“It's not that far, is it?” Annella asks.</p>
<p>Well, it's the same distance between Milan and Rome, but somehow I sense this is not about mileage.</p>
<p>“I mean, it's really nothing big. Basically just one room with an old fridge and a cooker I fear will electrocute me one day.”</p>
<p>“I don't think Elio will mind.” Annella reaches over and ruffles her son's hair. Elio grins.</p>
<p>Could it really be so easy?</p>
<p>Anxiety hits me like a hammer.</p>
<p>Suddenly, my appetite is gone. I wonder what's happening here? Have they rehearsed this charade? Has Elio spoken to his parents?</p>
<p>Is that what I want? Living with Elio on the weekends as he commutes to New York to study, we both at college, only I will be a professor while he's a freshman?</p>
<p>I don't know why, but that feels even worse than leaving him here in Italy and marrying Micol.</p>
<p>Because next spring will be my wedding. Instead of holding Elio in my arms at JFK as he arrives to study at Juilliard, I'll hold a screaming bundle named Alex that will prevent me from sleeping with his colics the next two years. No Idea how we even managed to conceive Tommy.</p>
<p>I try to smile and nod as the Perlmans start to make plans for a future I'm not sure I like. I feel somehow trapped right now, as if decisions are made without my consent.</p>
<p>As if Elio senses my unease he suddenly says: “Goldsmith's good as well. In London.”</p>
<p>“Sure.” Sami folds his paper. “Your cousin lives there.”</p>
<p>“You still have time to make up your mind.” His mother assures him.</p>
<p>I'm ashamed that I feel a sense of relief.</p>
<p>Soon after breakfast, Elio's parents leave, taking the car to drive to Milan. The only sounds I can hear is Mafalda puttering in the kitchen until Elio starts to play piano. I put the book I was reading down and listen.</p>
<p>It's neither happy nor sad. Elegiac. The notes lingering in the warm summer air. It somehow calms me.</p>
<p>When he starts a new piece, I get up and walk into the salon. I said it before, he's my siren.</p>
<p>He looks up when he senses my eyes on him but doesn't stop, his long fingers caressing the keys with more feeling than they ever caressed me.</p>
<p>“Sorry if you felt uncomfortable over breakfast.” He says, lowering his gaze. “I'm sure my parents suspect something. But, of course, they don't know about your... girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Whatever?” He misses a note and curses.</p>
<p>“Elio-”</p>
<p>“No, it's fine. We had talked about Juilliard before, actually. I'm not...” He trails off.</p>
<p>I sigh. “It's just, I have to sort some stuff out.”</p>
<p>“Of course.” His fingers stroke the keys and I watch, mesmerized. “I don't expect anything, Oliver. This could be just our fleeting summer romance.” A smile plays on his face and the music changes from major to minor.</p>
<p>“Elio...” I walk up to him to touch him, massage his tense neck, maybe bite it, but suddenly a group of noisy boys stumbles into the room, all half-naked and with tennis rackets over their shoulders, shouting at each other in Italian, whisking Elio away despite his protest.</p>
<p>I understand and wave after them as they run down the lawn and over to the tennis court. Only Elio turns around and waves back at me before the group swallows him up.</p>
<p>For fuck's sake, let him be young.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We doze in heaven in the afternoon, and I listen to the water cascading into the pool. Sami and Annella have joined us and are sitting in deck chairs in the shade, holding hands while both reading a book.</p>
<p>I wished this could be Elio and me some day. Here, in this garden. I gaze over at him, lying on the grass on his belly, his cheek resting on his folded arms, eyes closed. I rubbed sun tan lotion into his skin earlier. It would have let to much more rubbing hadn't his parents turned up.</p>
<p>But we just shrugged and smiled. Later, then. As if we had all the time in the world...</p>
<p>Suddenly, Mafalda interrupts my daydreams.</p>
<p>“Ulliva, there's a phone call for you.”</p>
<p>Not many people have my number here, basically only my family, university, and Micol. If one of them took the trouble to make an expensive long-distance call, it must be important. So I jump to my feet and run up to the house. I feel three pairs of eyes follow me. </p>
<p>Mafalda gestures towards Sami's study. It's a bit more private than the phone in the hall.</p>
<p><i>'Not my mum.' </i>I pray.<i> 'Don't let it be mum.'</i></p>
<p>But it's Micol.</p>
<p>“Hey.” She says.</p>
<p>“Hey. I didn't think you would speak to me again.” My palms are sweaty holding the receiver. What does she want? Whatever it is, she deserves that I listen. That's the least I can do.</p>
<p>“Ughm... yeah...,” there's a short, throaty laugh on the other end of the line, thousands of miles away. What time is it back home? “I can imagine.”</p>
<p>I have no idea what to say so I stay quiet.</p>
<p>“I don't know how to do this over the phone.” I hear her take a deep breath.</p>
<p>“Didn't we break up already?” I ask, trying to ease the tension with my lame joke.</p>
<p>“Yeah... well. Listen, okay, just listen to me, Olli. Okay? This is not...,” I can hear her exhale. ”So, after you were gone, I found out...”</p>
<p>My blood turns to ice.</p>
<p>“I found out that I was pregnant. You know how it is. I'm preparing for my exam and... well, things weren't outright stellar between us lately... and then we had this huge fight an you left... anyway, so I decided now was not the right time. And I made an appointment. With a doctor. For today.”</p>
<p>I fear I might throw up all over Sami's slides with naked statues carved out of marble three thousand years ago.</p>
<p>“Micol-”</p>
<p>“Please, let me finish.” Now she sounds as if she's crying. And I can't do anything. “I even got on the subway but then I couldn't... I couldn't go through with it. And this is not... what do they call it, a honey trap?” She laugh-sobs. “I'm not trying to make you... do the decent thing or any such bullshit. But I thought you should know. I mean, you were honest with me and so I guess you deserve me being honest with you as well.”</p>
<p>My head is spinning. My mouth is dry. What is happening here?</p>
<p>“Could you please say something? Anything?”</p>
<p>“Who's the father?”</p>
<p>She actually laughs now. “Jesus, how dense are you? You're the father, Olli.”</p>
<p>That's when my knees give out and I sink down onto the rug in front of Sami's desk. “Fuck!” I breathe.</p>
<p>“Exactly. Anyway, I've no idea how I'll do it but I'm having the baby. My baby. That's all I wanted to tell you. I don't need your money, we'll manage. But I want this. I'm not sure I still love you but I'm sure I'll love our child.”</p>
<p>“I come home on the next flight!” I declare as some ancient chivalry bubbles up inside me.</p>
<p>“Why? I'm not even sure I want you here right now. I have to-”</p>
<p>“I'm coming back to New York. We can get married in a week. I will-”</p>
<p>“Are you even listening to me, Olli? I don't want to marry a man who doesn't love me. How desperate do you think I am?”</p>
<p>“But your degree?” I know I sound pathetic.</p>
<p>“I'll graduate a year later. So what?”</p>
<p>“But how will you... survive?”</p>
<p>“Olli, we don't live in the 19th century anymore. There are a lot of single mothers with a job. There's childcare. I'll have my family to support me. I won't be an outcast, forced to earn my money begging in the streets until I drown myself because of my lost honor.” I'm not sure if she's angry or amused.</p>
<p>“Okay.” I breathe, trying to calm down.</p>
<p>“Seriously. I'm sure I'll be very happy. And I want you to be happy, too. With whoever it is you love. I mean, we once loved each other, right?” She sounds soft.</p>
<p>“Yes.” I nod.</p>
<p>“Okay, then...”</p>
<p>We both don't know what else is there to say.</p>
<p>Until I suddenly ask: “Can I see him, though?”</p>
<p>“Him?”</p>
<p>“Her. It. Them-”</p>
<p>“If it's twins I will force you to marry me!”</p>
<p>“Uhm...”</p>
<p>“That was a joke. Of course you can see your child. If you don't mind I'll give your name as the father.”</p>
<p>“That would be nice.” Nice? What the fuck am I saying?</p>
<p>“You're welcome.”</p>
<p>We both laugh.</p>
<p>“Olli, will you be all right?”</p>
<p>“Shouldn't I ask you that?” I feel rather lost right now.</p>
<p>“First dibs.”</p>
<p>“I guess.” I try to feel my body again. I'm still breathing. Good. I'm still shivering. That's the shock, I know. I have a bad taste in my mouth. But my shoulders slowly relax. I might be okay.</p>
<p>Micol hangs up without saying anything else. I stare at the receiver in my hand as if it's a mysterious foreign object.</p>
<p>That's when I hear the soft click.</p>
<p>And then Elio stands in the door of the study, gazing down at me.</p>
<p>“Congratulations! You look as if you need a drink.” His voice wobbles as much as his legs when he walks over to Sami's drinks cabinet.</p>
<p>We both end up sitting cross-legged on the rug, sharing expensive cognac straight from the bottle.</p>
<p>Sometimes, when life really fucks you over, all you can do is getting day drunk with your teenage lover in an ancient Italian villa.</p>
<p>Et in Arcadia ego.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Please, I hope you all are safe!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bliss. But they are on borrowed time...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Let me tell you, getting day-drunk with your teenage lover in an ancient Italian villa might sound like a good idea – but it isn't. Yes, I know, I have the perfect excuse – but don't underestimate how horny alcohol combined with shock makes you. Add to that a half-naked nymph-like willing boy and you can picture where this is heading.</p>
<p>The bottle is not even half-empty as we roll around the rug. The fireplace is cold and it's not a polar bear fur I'm lying on but it's still hot as hell. I think Elio is about to slurp Remy Martin directly from my belly button when there's a knock on the door.</p>
<p>“Everything okay in there?” Sami asks, sounding mildly amused but also a little bit worried.</p>
<p>When I sit up too fast Elio slides from my lap and falls back against an armchair, knocking a little side-table with books and papers over. </p>
<p>When the noise has died down I shout over Elio's giggles while straightening my t-shirt: “Yes, sorry, we're good. Sorry, we'll come out soon.”</p>
<p>Elio rolls his eyes, licks his wet lips and shakes his head.</p>
<p>“I'm not fucking you in your father's study.” This is not the right way to deal with daddy issues, should Elio have some.</p>
<p>Elio keeps lying sprawled out on the rug after Sami has hopefully left, watching me as I try to tidy up the papers and books spilled all over the floor.</p>
<p>“Could you help?” I'm to drunk to read what I'm trying to sort. This will end up such a mess.</p>
<p>“With what?” He grins, hollowing his cheeks seductively.</p>
<p>Now it's up to me to roll my eyes.</p>
<p>When we eventually stumble from the room and stagger up the stairs we almost collide with Mafalda carrying a pile of fresh linen. She yells after us but I don't listen.</p>
<p>Up in our room I lock the door and then let Elio ravish me. But I grab his curls before he can swallow me down, pull him up to my face and ask: “Don't you mind?”</p>
<p>“What? You're single, she doesn't want you back, so-”</p>
<p>Heartless youth! “But I'm going to be a dad!”</p>
<p>“Great!”</p>
<p>And that is that.</p>
<p>Could it really be so easy?</p>
<p>I forget my troubles for the next ten minutes as Elio sucks me off, greedy and determined. I have to say he's getting better at it, fingering my ass in the process and as he finds my prostate I almost throw him off the bed.</p>
<p>When I'm done he climbs all over me, still wiping his mouth as he offers me his own prick to return the favor. Just when I feel him swell on my tongue he pulls out and shoots all over my chest and face. I'm too stunned and drunk to protest.</p>
<p>Elio arches an eyebrow as he looks down at me. He seems very proud of himself as I wipe cum off my cheek and smear it in the sheets. Sorry, Mafalda.</p>
<p>“So, what now, daddy?” Elio asks, climbing off me to settle by my side.</p>
<p>“Don't do this!” I swat his bony hip. </p>
<p>He just laughs.</p>
<p>I roll on my back and stare at the ceiling as if hoping to find an answer there. Slowly, I realize that I will still have a child, though I won't have to marry Micol.</p>
<p>Have to? Was someone forcing me the first time? Well, I myself, presumably, and my ideas of what was normal and expected of me. But now everything is different.</p>
<p>God, I've been such a coward, making not only myself but probably Micol miserable as well. It#s true, we pulled through, with stiff upper lips and brave faces – but were we happy? We achieved a state of contentment, but were we truly happy? We were a good team, we respected each other, but when I dare to gaze at the boy lying beside me I feel a totally different sense of joy. It's sharp, hot, fierce. It hurts. But I feel alive when I'm with Elio. With Micol I felt... secure, yes, but also numb. As if I'd died years ago. I was a functioning, responsible adult, yes, but I wasn't really there with them in spirit.</p>
<p>In spirit, I stayed twenty-four and in Italy.</p>
<p>What kind of life is that? What did I have to offer my family? How was I so lucky to raise such great boys with being barely there, just presenting them my outer shell?</p>
<p>But now another road lies open before me, undiscovered country, untouched by either guilt or regret. I can be a father but I can also be free to explore my own way of life. I can imagine my family throwing a fit but what can they do? If I offered to do the right thing and Micol refused than it's not me to blame, right? (Though, knowing my father, he'll find a way...)</p>
<p>Will Micol want me to pay for the child? No, scratch that. I want to pay for my child. My share. I want to do my bit. And I want to see it (him). I remember suddenly how hard the first two years were, running on two hours of sleep at most for days, the baby bawling its guts out, shredding our nerves... I want to help Micol with that.</p>
<p>I think about calling her again but then decide to write. Put my offer down in writing, black on white, so she knows I'm serious and feel bound by it should she decide to accept. Which I hope she will.</p>
<p>A soft snoring next to me brings me back to another unsolved issue in my life – Elio.</p>
<p>As I turn to look at him his beauty is almost painful to behold. Pale, freckled skin, sharp cheekbones, a mop of dark curls, long black lashes fanning over his cheeks, his lips still swollen from our kisses...</p>
<p>How can I leave him?</p>
<p>I remember the talk about Juilliard. Is that a possibility for us? Do I want that? Not for me, but for him?</p>
<p>I feel like thinking about Micol and the baby has given me a new perspective. With them, I thought about what I could do for them, and not what I wanted for myself...</p>
<p>Shouldn't I think about Elio the same?</p>
<p>What does <i>he</i> need?</p>
<p>Does a seventeen year old boy need a significantly older lover?</p>
<p>I allow myself to remember what I had wanted at his age. Fun. Freedom. To explore, to find out who I was and what I wanted. Sure, that meant kissing a lot of frogs. But in retrospect it was worth it.</p>
<p>Could Elio and I really be happy together in the real world, with dirty socks and sharing rent and fighting who's turn it is to do the dishes?</p>
<p>Our life together, say, in New York, would be very different from my stay here in Italy: no servants, but instead real work that demanded to be done. In time. Not just drinking wine and swimming and eating lavish food. It would be canned pasta, instant coffee, visits by pest control because of the cockroaches, making ends meet with a meager student grant and an equally meager University salary.</p>
<p>Should I ever finish my thesis, that is, which right now for the first time I doubt.</p>
<p>What is the point of writing about ancient Greek philosophy in our times anyway? I think back to what I remember from the 80s: Reaganomics, AIDS, yuppies... in a few years we will invade the Middle East... who cares about Heraclitus' cosmic fragments? Isn't that intellectual escapism when I could put my mind to much better use, especially as I know what#s coming for my country, all the shit that will go down?</p>
<p>I sigh, turn so I can face Elio, and fall asleep as well, Morpheus offering me an escape from the worries of the world.</p>
<p>That night we both miss dinner but no one disturbs us.</p>
<p>Over the next days, we fuck. There's no other word for it. I do everything with Elio I always wanted to do, and he's an enthusiastic participant. In return, he tries to fulfill all his teenage sex fantasies with me, which is mighty fine.</p>
<p>We don't hold back. We tell each other our most base desires. I lick every nook and cranny of his body before penetrating it with my fingers and cock; he has me on every surface in the house he deems fit for such purpose, including the kitchen table one night, the huge polished dining table, the grand piano, even fucking me against the railing of the balcony while his parents entertain guests downstairs.</p>
<p>It's bliss. Hormone-driven bliss. We don't think about tomorrow. I don't think about my past. All that counts is where to put dick. We're both insatiable.</p>
<p>After about a week I fear my cock will show blisters. Elio is so sore he can't ride his bike (I eventually had bought lube but there's no Crisco in Italy in the mid-80s so we have to make use of some sort of vanilla smelling massage gel, but it's better than my sun tan lotion). </p>
<p>In between shagging, we lounge about the villa and its garden, eating fruit, drinking beer. It's outright decadent. Other people stop visiting because we literally only have eyes for each other. Elio's skin gets the color of milky Latte while I burn to a deep bronze.</p>
<p>When we are too fucked out to have another go, I chat with Vimini while Elio returns to his beloved music. But he needs a cushion to sit on the wrought-iron garden chair under the linden tree...</p>
<p>Talking to Vimini is like talking to a ghost. I can tell her everything because I know she will literally take it to her grave. So I tell her about Micol and the baby. She's over the moon, suggesting names (she liked it when I suggested Alex for a boy; at the moment, she prefers Esther for a girl). She understands that Micol will raise the child on her own. “Why not?” She asks, then shoots Elio a glance who's sunbathing in a deck chair.</p>
<p>How much does she know? I somehow don't think it appropriate to discuss my rather fanciful love life with a twelve-year old, though it evolves around a seventeen-year old. Am I a hypocrite? Possibly.</p>
<p>Annella and Sami discreetly avoided to mention the phone call or our odd behavior afterwards. I'm not sure what they suspect is going on by now. When I'm optimistic I hope that they've decided to let it run its course. Elio is wearing my shirt all the time, for example, and no one remarks on it.</p>
<p>A week before I'm due to fly home, there's a letter for me waiting in the hall that I read over breakfast. It's from my publisher in Rome. He invites me to stay with him for a few days before I depart for the US.</p>
<p>“Oh, Rome. Nice.” Annella shoots her son a look but he's concentrating of lathering a crepes with Nutella. How can he eat this stuff by the gallon and not get spotty? I just have to look at the greasy stuff to feel pimples erupting all over my chin. He's a true marvel.</p>
<p>I feel instantly guilty. Not because of Elio and his skin routine, but because of my publisher. Because I don't have anything for him to publish.</p>
<p>Sami seems to think the same because he looks at me over the rim of his reading glasses but thankfully refrains from asking me about my book.</p>
<p>I should really start to work on it but that's easier said than done when a half-naked Elio lounges about day and night, readily available.</p>
<p>The matter of my writing haunts me. Over dinner that night a journalist, a friend of Sami, asks me about my studies. I throw myself into a defense of classics, but it feels half-hearted at best even to me. Where has my passion for the ancient Greek world gone?</p>
<p>These days, I concentrate my passion on something else. The object of my desire sits opposite me and talks to the very young girlfriend of the journalist, sometimes looking over and smirking.</p>
<p>It feels strange not to be the only old guy fucking someone half their age.</p>
<p>I watch them while the journalist drones on about the state of the world. Elio leans close to the blond girl and says something in her ear. She giggles, then looks at him; their fingers brush as he hands her a plate of fruit. She spears a strawberry, making some kind of show sucking it into her mouth, licking the juice from her lips afterwards. </p>
<p>Elio steals a piece of chicken from her plate.</p>
<p>The journalist next to me has fallen silent.</p>
<p>They leave soon after.</p>
<p>That night, I literally throw Elio onto the bed and fuck him so hard I fear the frame might break. The headboard crashes into the wall and Elio screams my name when he comes (no idea how this can go unnoticed, but maybe the old walls are thicker than I think).</p>
<p>He limps into the bathroom afterwards and I feel awful and sorry, apologizing over and over when he returns to bed until he shuts me up with a kiss.</p>
<p>“I wanted it. Why do you think I provoked you with Natasha?”</p>
<p>“Was that her name?”</p>
<p>Elio slaps me in jest and calls me a Neanderthaler. A possessive caveman.</p>
<p>And maybe he's right? I mean, when I look back at the evening now, sedated and satisfied, I am able to see the beauty, the rightness of my Elio flirting with that young woman. Shouldn't it be like that? Shouldn't he at least have the opportunity to explore if this is something he wants to pursue? Women. Not instead but as well as men?</p>
<p>“Did you like her?” I ask, carefully feeling my way forward.</p>
<p>“Well, I like blonds, you know that.” He bites my earlobe, snuggles closer.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but, were you interested in her?”</p>
<p>“In what way?”</p>
<p>I can hear him smile. He enjoys tormenting me like this.</p>
<p>“You know in what way.”</p>
<p>“Carnal, you mean?”</p>
<p>He's talking like a 19th century novel. Never fuck a bookish boy.</p>
<p>“Would you mind if I did?” His voice is low, serious, seductive.</p>
<p>Would I?</p>
<p>“I don't know. Maybe.” But maybe what drove me wild tonight wasn't so much my fear of Elio fucking a girl but my desire for him to do so? And to tell me about it afterwards. “Maybe not...”</p>
<p>God, am I a pervert? Do I want to pimp Elio out? But on the other hand, do I really want an inexperienced lover who maybe only stays with me because he's never tasted anything else?</p>
<p>Don't they say <i>'If you love somebody, set them free'?</i> Or is this just a stupid line from a song?</p>
<p>Do I love Elio enough to set him free? Right now I would say I'd anything for him but do I really mean it? Would I do something that will drive him away from me?</p>
<p>At least Elio isn't shocked by my admission. Instead, he confesses, that he made out with Marzia in the hope I would surprise them. I do  feel a little sorry for the girl. But just a little. (What became of her? Did I ever meet her again after this summer? I visited the villa with Micol but was Marzia there? Was Chiara? Why can't I remember them?)</p>
<p>We fall asleep that night by telling each other whom we think the other should fuck. When Elio offers me Anchise I try to smother him with a pillow.</p>
<p>Apparently, our noise amorous escapism didn't go unnoticed last night, because the next afternoon, when it rains and we can't go anywhere, Sami calls me into his study.</p>
<p>He's smoking and nursing a drink, putting a book down he's been reading when I enter.</p>
<p>“Oliver, have a seat.” He pats the sofa cushion next to him.</p>
<p>I expect this to be about my thesis, so I'm rather shocked when he frankly states: “So, you and my son have a beautiful friendship, right? Maybe more than a friendship?” Yet he smiles at me, not a trace of threat or disgust in his tone.</p>
<p>When I stay quiet he shakes out a cigarette and pours me a drink from a carafe on a small side table. It's whiskey. I make a mental note to buy him some new Remy.</p>
<p>After another quiet moment in which I light my cigarette he says. “In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, praying that their sons land on their feet. But I am not such a parent.”</p>
<p>I take a deep drag from the untipped cigarette and am grateful for the nicotine flooding my body, helping me to relax at least a little.</p>
<p>“Elio's so lucky. My father would have carted me off to a correctional facility.” I confess. </p>
<p>Sami shakes his head, sighs. “How you live your life is your business.” He squeezes my knee. “We may never speak about this again. But I hope you’ll never hold it against me that we did.”</p>
<p>I make a small nod, put out the cigarette. But Sami's not finished. “You're aware that the end will be very hard for him, right? There will be sorrow, pain. I hope he can still remember the joy he felt with his first lover. With you.”</p>
<p>“I won't...”</p>
<p>“Oh, but we both know that you will. First love never lasts. But don't worry, Annella and I will be here to catch him, to pick up the pieces and help him heal.”</p>
<p>“Does his mother know?” I suddenly feel terrified.</p>
<p>“Of course, she does.” Sami smiles. “And she approves. Though...,” he takes off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt, “Maybe you could, you know, keep it down a little? And the dining table is a valuable heirloom from Annella's family, quite old, so please, be careful with it.”</p>
<p>I feel myself blush so hard I fear my skin might peel off my face. But Sami just laughs and raises his glass.</p>
<p>“Salute. Make my son happy. As long as it lasts. You're good for him. Because you're good. I'm glad he chose you.”</p>
<p>“He's better than me.”</p>
<p>I can't hold back, I start crying. No one has ever spoken to me like this, accepting me the way the man whose only son I'm sleeping with does. He almost treats me like a son-in-law. And so here I sit, a grown man, totally tearing up because at least in this moment, it's all okay. The guilt, the shame, the fear, the worry of 44 years have been taken off my shoulders. No amount of therapy or yoga have done what these few words by this middle-aged academic have accomplished: to mend my psychological cracks, at least a little and for a short while.</p>
<p>Over dinner, Annella mentions Rome again, suggesting that Elio might like to accompany me. He smiles and nods.</p>
<p>“I'd like that, too.” I agree.</p>
<p>So Sami books us a room at the elegant hotel he usually stays at when in Rome. A double, not a twin.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rome...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rome. The Eternal City.</p>
<p>I know twenty years on Elio still visits the corner on Via di Santa Marie Dell' Anima where I pressed him against the wall and kissed him, in public, for all to see, every time he's in Rome. It's like his private pilgrimage for a love long lost.</p>
<p>At least the Elio I knew does that... in my other life.</p>
<p>I have no idea if we'll end up there this time.</p>
<p>For now, I'm glad we safely arrived at the hotel. The train journey was exhausting, more spiritually than physically though. Elio sat so close and still I couldn't touch him. Our fellow passengers might have thrown us off the train. At least, they would have talked. Some might have acted rude. I told myself I didn't want Elio to experience this kind of harassment – but in truth it was me who was afraid.</p>
<p>Still. After all these years.</p>
<p>So I just watched Elio as he dozed off, praying that his head might fall against my shoulder and rest there.</p>
<p>It didn't.</p>
<p>Instead, he woke shortly before the train pulled into Termini with a crook in his neck.</p>
<p>I will massage him, later, kneading the tension from his body.</p>
<p>The hotel room is spacious, the bed large. There are flowers, a complimentary fruit basket (I tease Elio if there's a peach in it), a bottle of frizzante.</p>
<p>“I need a shower.” I declare, unbuttoning my shirt as I go.</p>
<p>Elio joins me when I stand in front of the toilet, pissing.</p>
<p>“Do you mind?” I ask primly.</p>
<p>“I don't think we should have any secrets from each other. I think, as we share our bodies, we should also share-”</p>
<p>“Please, stop talking.” Remembering what we did the first time – well, the other time – we were in Rome makes me cringe and blush. After being married for twenty years I know now that there are things you shouldn't witness your partner do if you still want to respect and desire them.</p>
<p>Watching Micol press out two babies from her vagina was a thing that nearly made me stop the latter. Watching Elio take a dump almost did the former.</p>
<p>It took me years to forget.</p>
<p>I mean, I carried Micol to the toilet when she suffered from food poisoning. I also held her head above a bucket after Zoe Abraham's fortieth birthday and way too many glasses of Champagne. But these were emergencies.</p>
<p>This is not.</p>
<p>“Just undress and get in the shower.” I tell Elio. He shrugs and, to my surprise, obeys.</p>
<p>Under the warm spray, I reward his compliance with a thorough fingering, using the hotel's shampoo as lube. Elio braces himself against the wall, watching me over his shoulder with heavy, hooded eyes until he splatters his cum all over the gray tiles.</p>
<p>It washes down the drain, the sand in the hourglass of our love affair.</p>
<p>The evening is warm and so I don't dress when I walk back into our room. Instead, I open the frizzante and offer Elio a glass. He sips it, looking out the window, nude as a newborn, the soft evening breeze raising goosebumps on his damp skin.</p>
<p>When I join him at the window sill he returns the favor, fingering me as we watch the people on the street four stories below.</p>
<p>It's too dry and hurts a little but I enjoy the burn.</p>
<p>When he crooks his finger and presses down on my prostrate I make a sound that has an old woman in black look up at us. Elio smiles at her and waves with his free hand while my eyes roll back in my head.</p>
<p>She doesn't wave back.</p>
<p>“Elio, I'm-” The wallpaper looks expensive. I've no idea if it's possible to wash cum off it without doing some damage.</p>
<p>But Elio understands my warning and withdraws his finger.</p>
<p>“I want you on edge tonight. We'll finish this when we return.” He smirks and turns away, walking over to his suitcase.</p>
<p>Right, we are about to meet with my publisher. I've no idea how to explain to him that there is nothing to publish, though...</p>
<p>But that thought flies out the window as Elio starts to dress. At the villa, I've only ever seen him in shorts and t-shirts – or less. I remember an older Elio in chinos and shirts, a warm winter coat in New England, or a linen summer suit in Italy.</p>
<p>But I'm not prepared for this Rome!Elio.</p>
<p>Because he pulls from his bag tight black jeans, a thin black turtleneck, and a white shirt printed all over with the outlines of faces. After he put this outfit on, he returns to the bathroom, and it takes him almost half an hour before he emerges again. He's done something quite artificial with his hair, which is now stiff with product and elaborately coiffed as if an enthusiastic hairdresser put a curling iron to it. A very camp hairdresser.</p>
<p>The glory is crowned with a little black beret sitting coquettishly at the back of Elio's head.</p>
<p>And is that eyeliner he's wearing?</p>
<p>He looks as gay as the proverbial picnic basket.</p>
<p>I have to swallow.</p>
<p>“What?” He asks as he flings himself into an armchair.</p>
<p>“Nothing.” I retreat into the bathroom that smells like a flower shop to put on my neck tie. I look like my own father in my navy suit. Though I doubt he'd get a hard-on over a seventeen year old boy dressing like Paul Young.</p>
<p>I knock back the last of my wine in the hope to get my body under control.</p>
<p>We stroll through the streets, glimpsing history everywhere. But I only have eyes for the beautiful boy next to me who doesn't care what people think. Some stare openly at him as we pass. Some shake their heads. I want to take his hand but only dare to walk so close out shoulders brush.</p>
<p>A few streets away from the bookshop where I'm to meet my publisher at some sort of book event, two girls call after us. They are tall and blond and I vaguely remember meeting them in New York last year – well, a lifetime ago, actually. They are my publisher's daughters but they completely ignore me; instead, they each grab one of Elio's arms, quickly adopting him as their new gay best friend.</p>
<p>This will happen a lot tonight.</p>
<p>The book event is more an excuse to get drunk. As we walk through the door a glass of whiskey is pressed into my hand, and they keep coming. People shake my hand, then hug and kiss Elio on the cheeks, speaking to us in rapid Italian or in English with a heavy accent.</p>
<p>Elio is the star and charms everyone. I bath in his glow as he baths in the attention. After half an hour I'm sure he scored invitations to at least five parties, three summer houses and one wedding.</p>
<p>Eventually, my publisher pulls me aside. “You have a very handsome friend.” He smiles at me and raises his glass.</p>
<p>“Ughm... thank you.” What else am I to say? Does he expect me coming out to him?</p>
<p>“He reminds me of a forest nymph, luring you to your doom, enchanting but deadly.” He winks.</p>
<p>“I hope not.” I quickly grab a glass from a passing tray. To change the subject I start to say: “About my book-”</p>
<p>“Oh, lets not talk trite business tonight. We should celebrate art and love instead, don't you think?” And he turns away to announce that now some poet will read one of his works.</p>
<p>I watch Elio as he listens, a small smile playing on his lips. His cheeks are red – I don't know if it's the alcohol or the heat or the attention or a mixture of it all – and there's a sheen of sweat on his brow. I want to lick it, taste the salt. I'm still half-hard in my good trousers and imagining Elio making me shoot my spunk all over the wool later tonight makes me stiffen even more.</p>
<p>A middle-aged woman looks up at me looking at Elio and silently moves aside, gesturing for me to scoot closer to my lover. She nods and pats my arm as if she has read my thoughts. God, I hope not.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the poet is finished, there's applause, but then the bottles seem to be empty and so it is decided to get some food somewhere else.</p>
<p>We are piling into cars and Elio and I get separated. Our driver doesn't know the way or has misunderstood where we are all to meet, and so it takes us a while to reach the restaurant. Meanwhile, a young couple grills me on who Elio is, where we met, and how anal sex feels like, as they want to try it but the girl isn't sure. I'm seriously contemplating throwing myself out of the driving car. Thank good we reach the trattoria before we can discuss who's the woman in Elio's and my relationship.</p>
<p>I try to sit as far away from the couple as possible, which ends me on the other side of the table. Elio is the center of attention again and there's no way to get close to him but he smiles at me when I enter, his eyes shining bright in the flickering candlelight. He's listening to a man looking like the cliche intellectual, with a pony tail and a silk scarf around his neck, telling a story about Thailand. I don't get what it's about but as he ends a discussion evolves during which Elio just nods from time to time, his gaze sharp and focused.</p>
<p>Instead of whiskey, here wine flows. I already feel a bit dizzy, and as the kitchen wasn't prepared for the arrival of our large group, it takes a while until some food materializes. I feel pleasantly buzzed by then but I can see that Elio is more than a little tipsy.</p>
<p>The girl next to him lays her head on his shoulder and starts to play with the curls on his nape.</p>
<p>He doesn't seem to mind as he laughs at someone's joke.</p>
<p>He's radiant, beautiful. I feel like I should get jealous but I can't. This Elio reminds me of a superb butterfly, newly hatched from its cocoon. He sparkles, he glows, yet he isn't fully aware of how he bewitches and enchants everyone. To me, as I watch, it's obvious how everyone admires him, his wit, his intelligence, his delicate beauty. But Elio doesn't realize his power, the magic he exudes.</p>
<p>Can I with good conscience deprive the world of him, his affability, his pulchritude, by keeping this young man for myself? Shouldn't I share him, instead, allow him to fledge, cutting the cord and setting him free?</p>
<p>He needs to find out how to be Elio Perlman and what that truly means, before he can be mine. Otherwise, I would cut him short, locking him up in a prison. And even if that prison is made of love, it will still cage and confine him. Maybe he wouldn't even notice. But he might wither nonetheless, until he feels bankrupt by the age of thirty. Drifting, burned-out, someone who never reached his full potential, never found out who he is.</p>
<p>Can I be so selfish?</p>
<p>Right now, Elio turns his head and looks at me. God, he's so pretty. His eyes shine from drink and laughter. His lips curl in an intimate smile, just for me, and I melt into a puddle of goo. I'm wax in his hands.</p>
<p>I need to get a grip.</p>
<p>The evening carries on and finally the food arrives. Yet it's getting late and so, after we've finished eating, the host more or less throws us out. Folks want to go on having more drinks, so we search for an open bar until we find one close to Piazza Navona.</p>
<p>They were about to lock up but someone persuades them to serve us, probably with a large tip. As we are a huge, thirsty group I start to help out behind the bar, mixing drinks.</p>
<p>“My man of many talents.” Elio almost falls off the bar stool as I slide him a peach Bellini.</p>
<p>“You should have some water, darling.” I quip.</p>
<p>It can be so ease. Here. Within this company.</p>
<p>A moment later, someone spots a piano on the far wall and calls for music. Elio obliges, playing tune after tune people shout at him. The crowd starts to roar and bawl and alcohol flows freely. Everyone is buying for the pianist until I fear Elio might throw up all over the keys.</p>
<p>But gladly, he makes it out onto the street, almost jumping to his feet in the middle of a song and fleeing the bar. I follow him, holding him around his middle as he's sick against an ancient wall. Afterwards, I guide him to the fountain and wash his face, holding his lolling head between my palms.</p>
<p>“Do you want to go back inside?” I ask.</p>
<p>He shakes his head, then stops and dry-heaves.</p>
<p>“Okay, lets walk.”</p>
<p>And as if drawn by invisible strings – or maybe it's just fate? - I realize after a few meters that we are in fact walking down Via diSanta Maria Dell' Anima. And there's the streetlight beneath which we kissed once... haven't kissed yet.</p>
<p>Elio stumbles against me and I pull him close. I could just walk past this spot and rid him of a memory that might more torture him than bring him joy...</p>
<p>But suddenly, Elio stops, looks up at me – and it should be gross, as he just brought up his dinner, but it isn't.</p>
<p>Now it's me pressed back against the wall as Elio kisses me, deep, his tongue sliding into my mouth while one of his legs slides around my thigh. He tastes a little sour but not too bad, and frankly, right now, I couldn't care less.</p>
<p>Before closing my eyes, I see a moth colliding with the lamp above me, followed by a hissing sound.</p>
<p>I hear an old man cough and mutter something. </p>
<p>But all I feel is Elio, in my arms, I my mouth, trapping me, invading me, taking what he needs, giving me what I need.</p>
<p>Then he pulls back, laughs, and skids down the road without looking back, sure that I will follow him.</p>
<p>Looking up again, I see the moth trapped in a spider's web, the fat black body wrapping its prey into deadly silk. It will suck it dry later... </p>
<p>Elio and I end up in another square where a small group of people is gathered around a single busker. He plays a song on his guitar I've heard a few times over the summer, even one time at La Danzing:</p>
<p>
  <i>Lady, lady, lady</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Don't walk this lonely avenue</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Lady, lady, lady</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Let me touch that part of you</i>
</p>
<p>Elio hums along, taking my hand, swaying slightly to the tune as we stand a little apart from the group in the shadows. A girl glances over to us and smiles. I smile back.</p>
<p>I'm tempted to ask her to join us. Invite her for a drink back to our hotel. For Elio to have her and just to watch them together, watching Elio pleasure her, watching her pleasure him.</p>
<p>But Elio sings into my ear: “Take me back to the hotel and touch every part of me.”</p>
<p>I get us a cab.</p>
<p>But when we arrive, Elio is barely conscious. I almost have to carry him upstairs. He faceplants into  bed and I'm left alone with my raging hard-on, rubbing one out next to Elio while he snores peacefully.</p>
<p>We don't leave the room the next three days. We might be in the most beautiful city in the world but I can't take my eyes off Elio's naked back, the ridge of his spine arching under me more enticing than the Pantheon.</p>
<p>We don't even go out for food but order room service. I hope Sami won't ask too many questions about the amount of oysters and asparagus we consume to nourish our libido.</p>
<p>I made a rule that Elio is forbidden to wear any clothes and he abides, not a thread of fabric touching his body in 72 hours.</p>
<p>Instead, I cover him in my cum, marking him. He asks for it and more than once I wake up from a nap with Elio's already suckling my cock, his eyes looking up at me, pleading.</p>
<p>We fuck each other until we are sore, and then some more. Because we both know that the time to part is drawing closer – and at least we want to feel the other for a while after he's gone.</p>
<p>We don't make plans. We don't talk much at all. What is there to say? At least with words? Our bodies communicate in their own language, base and carnal. Honest and true.</p>
<p>As our last morning together dawns, I watch Elio sleep, fucked out and serene. He looks so young, so fragile. The sun rises over Rome but the light doesn't bring me any inspiration.</p>
<p>What are we to do?</p>
<p>I ask Elio as he wakes.</p>
<p>He looks at me with bleary eyes, rakes a hand through his tousled curls. I hug him from behind, inhaling his scent of sleep and sex.</p>
<p>“I don't know.” He answers eventually, turning to face me. His breath smells stale but I don't mind. He traces my biceps with his index finger, not looking me in the face.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” I try again.</p>
<p>He shrugs. Bloody teenager!</p>
<p>“Do you think we have a future?”</p>
<p>“Isn't that up to you?” He answers, his voice low.</p>
<p>“You think so?”</p>
<p>“Well, your life sounds a lot more complicated than mine right now. I only have to finish school.”</p>
<p>I've been sleeping with a school boy, it's true. Some would find that hot – but not me.</p>
<p>“Too complicated for you?” I ask quietly.</p>
<p>He shrugs again. I could strangle him. But then he says: “I didn't think... you wanted... something real. I thought this was just some fun for you. A summer fling. A distraction.”</p>
<p>“You are way more than a distraction, Elio.”</p>
<p>“Am I?” He eventually raises his eyes to mine.</p>
<p>“I said I love you, and I mean it. But sometimes loving someone means you have to let him... go. I want you to come to me because you want me – not because you don't know how to be with anyone else.”</p>
<p>Elio frowns.</p>
<p>“What I mean is, do we really know each other? We've met her in this... paradise. But this is not the real world.”</p>
<p>“I don't know about the real world. I'm just seventeen.”</p>
<p>His answer disarms me completely.</p>
<p>I think he wants to say something more but then he sits up and glances at his watch on the nightstand. “We should get going. It's seven. Your flight's at eleven.”</p>
<p>He takes a long time to shower.</p>
<p>When he returns to the room, I hold up the shirt. “You still want it?”</p>
<p>A smile breaks out on his face. When he buttons up Billowy he says: “We can get coffee on the way to the airport.”</p>
<p>I hesitate. “Elio... I'm not sure I want you there. I mean... it might be easier to say good-bye here, alone.”</p>
<p>“Okay...”</p>
<p>I can't look at him while I finish packing.</p>
<p>“Give my love to your parents.” I say as I close my suitcase. “I'm aware that I must have been a disappointment to your father. At least academically.” I still remember the kind words Sami spoke to me. Almost like a father-in-law.</p>
<p>Elio just nods.</p>
<p>It's time.</p>
<p>“Come here.” I open my arms. At first, he's reluctant to hug me, but then he won't let go.</p>
<p>“I call. I write.” This time, I mean it. “And then we'll see. If this is something we both want.” I whisper into his hair, inhaling his smell one last time. “You already mentioned Juilliard...”</p>
<p>“But that's in a year!”</p>
<p>For someone Elio's age, this must be an eternity.</p>
<p>“Maybe Christmas, then.”</p>
<p>I remember coming back to Italy, only to break it off with Elio in person. His wounded eyes in the dark, his pride kicking in, forbidding him to cry in front of me... but I had wanted to see him one last time. Had wanted to witness his heartbreak as a warning to me, a reminder. To never ever entertain any hope he might want me again. Leaving burned ground in my wake, salted earth, cauterizing his feelings for me.</p>
<p>I told myself it was better that way – for him. And for me. I've been such a coward.</p>
<p>I swallow my tears now, the guilt almost overwhelming me.</p>
<p>“Elio, I-” I want to tell him. Tell him everything. That I'm not who he thinks I am. That I'm not the person he should be falling in love with. That I'm not the 24 year old grad student but a 44 year old dad and husband who once loved him more than anyone in the world.</p>
<p>But now he has to share my affection with two other boys. And one of them will soon come into my life. I have to meet him. I want to welcome him.</p>
<p>I thought I couldn't keep loving Elio twenty years ago because living our love would destroy everything important to me. My family. My career. But what did I know about love back then?</p>
<p>I had no idea how it could hurt, fester, change, grow, die, fade, nurture, make you happy and sad at the same time. I needed twenty years of loving Elio from afar to begin to understand.</p>
<p>That love doesn't mean to share a life. Love doesn't mean to burden to other with your feelings. Love means to want the best for the other person, even if it almost kills you.</p>
<p>I'm not sure I can live through that again. But I'm as clueless what else to do as I was twenty years ago.</p>
<p>And then Elio whispers: “Just love me a little bit, Oliver. Promise me you won't forget me.”</p>
<p>And he kisses me. It's our last kiss. Desperate, tender. A farewell and a promise.</p>
<p>“Go.” He tells me and I grab my suitcase and walk out the door, not looking back. </p>
<p>The last time, it took 15 years before I saw him again. <i>That</i> is an eternity, even to me.</p>
<p>Rome passes by unseen as the cab drives me to the airport. I check in like a robot. Too late I remember the bottle of water in my bag but in 1987 no one cared.</p>
<p>The flight is long. I'm too tall for my seat and the man next to me tells me all about his business. He's dealing in apricots. I want to tell him about the origin of that word but I doubt he'll be interested.</p>
<p>When I land in New York no one's there to meet me. I'm utterly alone.</p>
<p>I have nowhere to go. What am I even doing here?</p>
<p>When I've retrieved my suitcase from baggage reclaim, I take out the postcard I stole from Elio's room. I stare at the image of Monet's Berm for a long time.</p>
<p>We've been happy there... I felt whole, loved, accepted. I feel the icy water around my ankles and Elio's hot body against me, the grass tickling my skin...</p>
<p>But then a family bumps into me - mother, father, two curly-haired children – waking me from my stupor, apologizing profusely. I start to jog through arrivals, searching for a pay phone to make a call. To Italy. I cry for solid ten minutes. Elio does the same. Then I run out of change and the call ends mid-sentence, just as I'm telling him about apricot-man between sobs.</p>
<p>I find the washroom and splash my face with cold water. “Who are you?” I ask the the man staring back at me. “And what the fuck do you want to do with your life?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry, but you see, they are still talking to each other. Oliver is slowly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Okay, this is a bit different in style. I hope you still like it...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I needed to try something different to motivate myself. It's not that I don't like these two any longer, but the whole situation is getting to me so I tried something new...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>New York, September 1st 1987</i>
</p>
<p>My dearest Elio,<br/>
I'm so sorry that it took me so long to write to you. But these last few days have been... wild. Busy. I had a lot to do. After we hung up, I went up to Boston to have a talk with Micol in person. I owed her at least that. It went okay, I guess, but I think you can imagine that she wasn't too keen on sharing the apartment with me any longer, considering, well, everything.<br/>
So I packed my things and left – not only Boston but also the university. I mean, I didn't finish my thesis in Italy and won't do it now that I'm back, honestly. I hope you still love me even as I'm now a failed academic?<br/>
Yeah... so that's that.<br/>
I haven't told my parents yet. That will be a whole new level of... I don't know. Let's just say that my parents are very different from yours.<br/>
But that's nothing to concern you with.<br/>
I want to tell you something fun instead: Okay, you won't believe it. But when back in New York – I moved into the YMCA! Seriously. Like in the song! It's cheap, the cockroaches are not bigger than anywhere else in Manhattan, and the company is surprisingly decent. But I don't plan to stay here, don't worry. It's just for the time being. The downside is that the single payphone down the hall is always occupied, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to call you again. Though I think writing is maybe better to sort my thoughts anyway. At least for now I quite enjoy the thought of you holding this letter in your hands.<br/>
Your hands, Elio... pianist hands...<br/>
But I get distracted.<br/>
I really don't know yet what I'll be doing. For now, I'm working as one of the million waiters here in Manhattan, at a small cafe. It's not that bad. Tip is good as it's close to Wall Street, and all the yuppie bankers come in for their 'lattes' – you would probably gag if anyone made you taste them (both the coffee and the brokers, sorry), but they don't know better and feel very jet set. I might even invest in some shares. I think there are a few interesting companies that will perform promising in the future. Apple, Microsoft... computer ventures in general. That's where the future lies, believe me, not in ancient philosophy and dead languages, as much as I like them. So as soon as I have a dime to spare, I'll become a tycoon. What do you think? You could become my kept lover when I'm rich (sorry, again, I think I'm just horny).<br/>
New York right now is too hot, though. I hate the summer in the city. Or maybe I just miss Italy. The beach, the villa. Miss you...<br/>
Please, despite my nonsense above, write to me, tell me what you're doing... Best use the address of the cafe, though, as I might move out here soon.<br/>
I live in hope!<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, September 15th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>My love,<br/>
you have no idea how happy your letter made me! I'm sorry you thought I'd forgotten you. Believe me, I would never! Ever. I'd write it to you in my own blood if you demanded it (letter writing truly gets me emotional, can you see it?).<br/>
It seems letters to and from Europe take a week, though... well, it can't be helped for now. Just imagine we could communicate faster, like it was with those telegrams or grandparents sent, only everyone would be able to receive them and send them from home. I know there are people attempting to create a global communications network, a web... but for now, letters are the best way.<br/>
In other news – I found an apartment! In Greenwich Village. It's a bit run-down but that's why I can afford it. Apartment might sound a bit too grand for it, though. It's actually just a large space with a cooker and a wash basin. I share it with 20000 cockroaches and just a few rats. I might have to get a cat. What do you think? And yes, this is pretty normal for NYC, don't worry.<br/>
At the cafe, a new guy started, Bob. He's such an idiot. Sorry, I'm just doing this job for a few weeks but even I didn't make so many mistakes on my first day. He always mixes up the orders! It's a nightmare. See, these are my problems right now. Not explaining Heraclitus.<br/>
Okay, I've got to go, my shift starts soon.<br/>
Give my love to your parents.<br/>
Have a safe journey back to school! Write to me when you've arrived!<br/>
Honestly, I miss you so much it hurts. Is there such a thing as letter sex?<br/>
I love to hear from you!<br/>
Love, Oliver<br/>
P.s. I had a talk with my parents. I... can't put that into writing, it's too fresh. I try to call you as long as you're still at the villa. Let's just say my decision to drop out of uni didn't go down well...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, September 29th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>My Elio,<br/>
thank you for your kind words! They really mean a lot to me. And don't feel bad for me! Instead, be happy that at least you have loving, understanding parents. I think I won't hear from mine anytime soon. Which is fine as I'm not sure how to tell them that Micol is having my baby. They only know that we broke up...<br/>
And I have absolutely no idea how to tell them about you and me, as me not going back to uni almost caused my dad a coronary...<br/>
I think you could say I'm a coward.<br/>
But I just don't have the energy for this right now. It's bad enough being separated from you...<br/>
Okay, let's change the subject before this gets too moody.<br/>
You remember Bob? Well, that idiot actually hit on me! Don't worry, love, nothing happened. But maybe he's not such an idiot after all as he took me to a meeting after I declined going to bed with him. It was a group of activists and they try to raise awareness for this new disease. AIDS, also known as the gay plague. There's simply no cure or treatment for it here and people – gay men – are dropping like flies without anyone taking care of them. I have ignored this for so long... too long. But now I want to do something. I want to help. I want to get involved. I feel lucky being healthy and I want to give something back to... my community? Does this sound very corny?<br/>
I'm sorry that school sucks, babe! And I sincerely hope they don't open your post!<br/>
So your next break is for Christmas? That's still some months away, but maybe we could make plans? I don't think I'll be able to come to Europe, though. My dad cut me off and the money I make at the cafe is barely enough to prevent me starving... But maybe you and your family would like to come over? I think your father has friends here?<br/>
Anyway, let me know what you think!<br/>
I miss you! I love you!<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, October 13th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>Oh, Elio!<br/>
Now that I know that only you read your letters, I feel able to write you something a bit naughty...<br/>
My nights here are very lonely. So, when I lie in bed, and I think of you, I touch myself. Slow, at first, kicking my boxers off. I get so hard when I remember you, your silky skin, your lovely body, lithe, pale, your rosy nipples, that dark bush between your legs. And your cock. Your gorgeous, delicious cock. I want to suck it so bad, baby, please, tell me I can when we meet again. I think about pressing you against a wall and just swallow you down. I miss your taste. I have trouble remembering it. And your smell...<br/>
At that point, just stroking my cock is usually not enough, so I spread my legs wide and start to finger my hole. At least here I have proper lube so I put one or better two fingers up my ass. It's not very comfortable and it's so much less sexy than if you would do it, but it's better than nothing... I still imagine it's you... that''s usually enough to make me shoot my cum all over myself... you see those droplets at the bottom of this page? Yeah... sorry, just thinking of you and writing this down got me going...<br/>
In other news, we started some direct action, something that's called a 'die in' in front of the city's town hall. Police came and I got arrested! I even had to spent some hours in a police jail until I was able to call our family lawyer. He got me out. But now my dad will find out what I'm up to. I both dread it and want him to know. His son joining a gay rights group! The shame!<br/>
I think there will be another unpleasant phone call in the foreseeable future. Wish me luck.<br/>
I love you! I'd do anything for you! Did you have time to think about Christmas?<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, October 27th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>My beloved!<br/>
I can't thank you enough for how you were there for me when I was spiraling the other day! I'm so sorry you had to witness me completely losing it. But that letter from my father... it was just too much, even as I had expected it. I know, we agreed to never talk about it again – but please let me express my deepest, truest gratitude for the way you talked me through my breakdown. I don't know what I'd done if we hadn't spoken that night... Sorry to burden you with all this shit, I shouldn't drop all my emotional baggage on you. That was one reason I left Italy, to keep you out of this turmoil. It's ugly. It dirties what we have. I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me.<br/>
I'm also very grateful for the tokens of your affection as you called them. Especially your worn boxers... they are a source of endless... satisfaction. The jersey is nice as well. Just the idea of you playing Rugby in it gets me hot. I want you in just your long socks and nothing else... Thank god for English public schools! (I know you don't share this sentiment but try to see it my way).<br/>
And no, I didn't get arrested again, though we held another protest, this time storming the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company that doesn't want to develop medicine to treat the HI virus. They only called their own security and escorted us off the premises. I think they feared the negative publicity calling the cops would have given them. But that's exactly what we are after.<br/>
It's so great to meet so many like-minded people at Act Up. It starts to feel like a second family. I hope you can meet my brothers (and some sisters) in arms one day.<br/>
I wish you luck with your history assignment. But I'm sure you'll do fine! You are so smart. That's one reason I fell for you...<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, November 10th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
summer in this city was utter shit but November is worse. The heating in my apartment is not working and my fingers are already stiff from cold (not my only stiff body part right now, sorry, but I have to do something to warm me up). I just hope the freezing weather kills the cockroaches. They've become rather bold lately.<br/>
At least the cafe is full at this time of year and money is coming in. So I made good on my resolution and bought some Apple shares. Believe me, that will see me through some rainy days in the future... and yes, I think you should get a computer, despite what your dad says. There are also programs to write music with, and even to record it, without an orchestra! (A guy at Act Up knows a lot about it, he explained it to me). Isn't that fantastic? Though don't get an Atari. Don't ask me why, just believe me. No Atari.<br/>
I went up to Boston the other day and met with Micol. She's well. She looks happy. My family has contacted her but she told them not to. I admire her guts. She took me to the doctor where she had a scan. It was... very emotional. Sorry, this might all sound alien and even a bit unappealing to you, but when I saw the baby for the first time... it was magical.<br/>
Yes, Vimini wrote to me. She writes pretty regularly. I was so sorry to hear that the new treatment didn't work. If I still believed in god I would pray for her... But I took off my Star of David after the letter from my father. I might have to pawn it to get the heating going. Or I might give it to my son when he's born (did I mention it's a boy?).<br/>
I miss you. My bed is even colder without you. Have you decided on Christmas yet? No pressure, just, well... my hand is getting calloused from touching myself. Those Polaroids helped a little, but I'm not sure, they might make things worse... I need to touch you! Lick you, taste you, kiss you, bite you...<br/>
I'm going to bed now dreaming of you.<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, November 28th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
happy belated birthday!<br/>
I'm worried. You didn't write. I know I shouldn't call the school but I might. Please, I need to hear from you! Was it something I said? About the baby? Please, don't freak out. Just call me anytime! Or write. Just send me a few words.<br/>
Please.<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, December 10th 1987</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
happy Hanukkah! Give my love to your parents.<br/>
It's been a month now.<br/>
I tried to call your school but was told you were unavailable to come to the phone. I'm sorry, I don't want to cause you any trouble... Please, just tell me what I did wrong.<br/>
If you don't want this anymore... I'm not saying that I would accept it. Or understand it. I won't. But we could talk about it. About us.<br/>
Please.<br/>
I still love you!<br/>
Just give me a sign.<br/>
Yours<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>Boston, January 8th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>My love,<br/>
I still fantasize about that moment I opened my apartment door and it was you standing there, with your nose red from the cold and wrapped up in so many layers you looked like a human burrito.<br/>
Just remembering makes my heart skip a beat.<br/>
The best Christmas ever! (Not that I usually celebrate it but you know what I mean).<br/>
Unwrapping you was the sexiest thing ever. Even your cold the next few days was sexy and yes, endearing, even as I know how much you hate me saying that. Suck it up, baby!<br/>
Having you in my bed these few days was the closest I came to heaven, I believe. Well, after our summer.<br/>
It was so good to talk. Yes, talk! I mean, the sex was sensational as well but just being able to talk to you... face to face. To laugh with you. Cry with you.<br/>
I hope our domesticity didn't put you off?<br/>
Have you heard from Juilliard yet?<br/>
I'm sorry I had to rush up to Boston the day you left and couldn't see you off at the airport. But I'm sure you understand that Micol needed me.<br/>
It was... intense. I won't say more as I know it makes you uneasy. But everyone is healthy and Micol named our son Alexander. He drinks well and sleeps a lot and seems to be a friendly baby overall.<br/>
I have no words for how I feel.<br/>
I hope you got back safely. How was your flight? Would you like me to send you a picture of Alex?<br/>
I'm not sure I've ever felt this happy in my life.<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, January 20th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>Please, Elio,<br/>
don't do this to me.<br/>
I understand that it's weird, complicated, hard. But that's my life. Should I lie to you? Do you want me not to talk about one of the most important things in my life?<br/>
I'm aware that you're just 18! I'm aware that this is a lot to take in. It's not much better at 24. Or 44. Life is a mess and it's trouble and it can hurt but it's mostly worth it!<br/>
Please, give us a chance. Give me a chance! Don't make me chose between my love for you and my love for Micol and my son. These are entirely different things. I love them and would die for them – but I want to live with you!<br/>
Okay, I returned to NYC. Maybe that helps all of us. I'll give you all the time you need. Just, please, don't end things like this. Not with a letter.<br/>
Love, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, February 14th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>Happy Valentine's Day, Elio!<br/>
I'm thinking of you. I love you!<br/>
Always yours<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, March 20th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
thank you for your letter.<br/>
I'm sure the conservatory in Paris is a very good school.<br/>
I wish you all the best.<br/>
Take care!<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, April 10th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
thank you for your birthday wishes. The card was fun.<br/>
Give my love to your parents.<br/>
Yours, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, May 15th 1988</i>
</p>
<p>Congrats to your exams!<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, January 6th 1989</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
thank you for the birthday card. Yes, Alex is now a year old. He's quite a handful but Micol manages amazingly. I go up every other weekend. He starts to walk now which is super exciting and also super stressful.<br/>
I got promoted to the cafe's manager. Bob's still with us though he's not looking good.<br/>
I hope all is well in Paris?<br/>
Kind regards<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, March 18th 1990</i>
</p>
<p>Oh my god, Elio! I'm so sorry for Vimini. I know she fought until the end. She was so fucking brave! I really want to attend the funeral but I don't think I'll be able to come to Italy on such short notice. Instead of flowers I'll make a donation in her name to the Act Up HIV fund. Do you think she'd appreciate that?<br/>
I'll write to her parents in a separate letter.<br/>
Stay strong!<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, December 11th 1990</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
so you saw the article about Act Up in Time Magazine? Yes, I'm sure there's a French branch as well. Join it if you can! We need everyone!<br/>
How's uni going? How's life?<br/>
Yours, Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>New York, June 26th 1991</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
your mother sent me the article about your graduation! Well done! You're a star! So now you're off to Milan to work at the Scala? Wow, that's fucking impressive! I always knew you had it in you!<br/>
All the best<br/>
Oliver</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>Boston, August 1st 1991</i>
</p>
<p>Dear Elio,<br/>
Alex started kindergarten today. Here's a photograph of us three! And a drawing by him. I'm the huge giant with the blond crew cut.<br/>
Don't be shocked. Yes, Micol is pregnant again. And yes, I'm the father. But it was done artificially. We both wanted a brother or sister for Alex so we decided this was the best.<br/>
Everyone's well here.<br/>
I might actually come to Europe in a few weeks. To Italy. To Milan. Lavazza has invited me to a training course to become a barista, which is a fancy word for coffee boy.<br/>
Maybe we could meet?<br/>
Still yours, Oliver</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As we are now truly leaving novel/book territory, this story might become a bit vague or subjective. There won't be obvious explanations but I hope you can read between the lines...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They meet again...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I'm sitting in a small cafe on Via Giuseppe Verdi, around the corner from Teatro alla Scala, waiting for him.</p>
<p>Elio.</p>
<p>It's been over three years years. Almost four.</p>
<p>The last time I had to wait fifteen years...</p>
<p>I don't think he'll have a beard this time. But who knows?</p>
<p>I haven't seen him since the first days of January 1988. I remember him lying in my bed, rubbing his bleary eyes while I was haphazardly pulling my clothes on. It had been very early morning, almost night still, when my phone had rung, announcing that Micol had been delivered to hospital. I wouldn't make it for the actual birth but of course I had to go up to Boston immediately.</p>
<p>A quick kiss to Elio's sleep-tousled, warm, a little smelly curls – and off I was. He'd murmured something but I didn't catch it, already too preoccupied with becoming a father...</p>
<p>I don't regret leaving that day the way I did.</p>
<p>I had to.</p>
<p>I do regret, however, not preparing Elio better for the shock. Of not explaining my complicated, contradictory feelings when it comes to fatherhood, parenthood, family, and the place my children have in my life.</p>
<p>My children...</p>
<p>Alex is three now, tall for his age, blond, big blue eyes. He looks very much like me as a toddler. He's a quiet, curious child (now that his colics have stopped). The first few months were as hard as I remembered. I went up to Boston as much as I could to help. No idea how we managed. These months are still a blur – which might be a good thing as they buried my pain over losing Elio.</p>
<p>Or rather, Elio drifting away, the distance taking its toll...</p>
<p>I have no hard feeling for everything that happened, though. Who at the age of 18 is interested in kids – especially other peoples'? At that point three years ago our lives had simply just been on different trajectories. Elio had been almost a child himself. He had to find his way to grow up.</p>
<p>While I had to take care as best I could of my new family.</p>
<p>Or of the closest thing I have that resembles a family.</p>
<p>Alex doesn't call me dad. He calls me Olli. Somewhere in his small brain he understands the concept that I am there for him – but I am different from the other dads he knows. I'm not always there and I and Micol are not a couple.</p>
<p>I try to see him as often as possible. And as often as I can bear it. I love him – don't get me wrong. But knowing that this family will never be like the one I used to know is still hard to accept sometimes. The leaving is the worst, yet I know I have to leave Alex and Micol after a few days because I am not – can't be – the husband and father they deserve.</p>
<p>Since a few months now, there is a new man in Micol's life. When she first told me about him I was so afraid that he would somehow deprive me of seeing Alex. But it turned out he's a great guy. Michael. A doctor like Micol, they met at the hospital where she now works.</p>
<p>He even agreed for Micol to have a second child with me. Maybe agreed is the wrong word, though. It's not that Micol asked his permission, not as far as I know. No idea how they worked it out – but Alex will have a real sibling, not a half-sibling. Micol is not a fan of patchwork in that regard. And the thing with Michael is still fresh. With me, she's sure what she gets, whereas with him, she still has to put their blossoming relationship to test. And so, because she doesn't want her children to be too far apart, she'd asked me if we could have a second baby.</p>
<p>That's why she and I went to a clinic. It worked on the first try.</p>
<p>I realize that I'm thinking about all of this so I won't get too worked up while I wait for Elio. I even get my wallet out and look at a snapshot of Alex, stroking his little face with my thumb to distract me from the nauseating feeling of anticipation possessing me.</p>
<p>Elio.</p>
<p>How will it be?</p>
<p>How will he be?</p>
<p>I contemplate to flag the waiter down to order a second espresso (not that my heart isn't pounding hard enough already) when I hear the bells above the entrance chime.</p>
<p>I look up and our eyes meet.</p>
<p>His hair is longer.</p>
<p>He's wearing a pink shirt with ruffles, very artsy. And shades. A messenger bag is slung over his shoulder. He looks grown up. Elegant. Professional. Sure of himself as he walks over to my small corner table.</p>
<p>The waiter greets him. Elio smiles, raises his hand, as if to delay his arrival at where I'm seated for a few precious seconds.</p>
<p>So maybe he's nervous himself?</p>
<p>But then he stands in front of me and I'm not sure if I should get up. Offer him my hand? Hug him? Run?</p>
<p>So I just smile up at him while he stares down at me from behind his tinted glasses. Time stretches.</p>
<p>Until he pulls out a chair opposite and sits down.</p>
<p>A cappuccino appears in front of him, then the waiter retreats.</p>
<p>The air around us is filled with the thick static of nostalgia.</p>
<p>“Hi, Oliver.” He's the first to break the silence.</p>
<p>“Hello, Elio.” I answer.</p>
<p>He takes off his shades then and smiles. His eyes are as I remember them, a grayish green reminding me of the sea on an overcast day.</p>
<p>“It's been a while.” He says. “How are you?” He doesn't sound shy or awkward as I had expected, but rather self-assured. Apparently, it's me who can't handle the situation.</p>
<p>My hands have started shaking on the table so I hide them in my lap.</p>
<p>I swallow.</p>
<p>I clear my throat,</p>
<p>Elio waits, the smile still on his face, head tilted to one side.</p>
<p>“Good. I'm good.” I manage to croak out eventually.</p>
<p>“Good.” He nods, taking a sip of his coffee, licking a trace of foamy cream from his upper lip as he lowers the cup.</p>
<p>I want to grab his face and taste his lips.</p>
<p>Instead, I pull myself together and return his question.</p>
<p>“I'm fine. In a bit of a hurry, though, rehearsals start in one hour.” He points at the huge white building residing on the corner of the street.</p>
<p>“Yeah, wow, the Scala. How is it? How's work?” Talking about work is a safe subject, right?</p>
<p>“It's pretty demanding. I'm quite new to it. But I'm learning a lot.” He nods to himself, sounding serious, much more serious than I remember him.</p>
<p>“And how was Paris?”</p>
<p>“Are you really trying to catch up on over three years of my life?” The smile is still there as he calls my bullshit in the gentlest way possible.</p>
<p>I sigh, feeling called out. “I just thought I should ask.”</p>
<p>“Why? Do you feel somehow guilty? Don't worry, no need for that.” He waves the waiter over and says something in Italian that I don't get as I'm too preoccupied picking his last sentence apart.</p>
<p>“Not exactly guilty, no.” I tell him when the waiter has left us. “But I think I should somehow explain-”</p>
<p>“What? You made a decision, Oliver. I might be young but I still get that. And now it's two old friends meeting for a chat.” For the first time, his smile seems to crack as something flickers over his face, too quick for me to grasp it. Bitterness? Anger? Disappointment?</p>
<p>Suddenly, a grappa arrives. I stare at the glass, the oily liquid. It's not even four in the afternoon.</p>
<p>“A bit early for you, isn't it?” I ask Elio, trying to hide my worry behind a grin.</p>
<p>But he pushes the glass over to me. “For you. To calm your nerves. God, Oliver, you look as if you might pass out on me here any minute. Down with it.”</p>
<p>I gape at Elio for a moment but then do as I'm told. Funnily, the alcohol helps me to relax a little, warming me from the inside.</p>
<p>“Let's not dwell on the past. I'm not sure how much you really wanna hear about my past life.” He says when I put the empty glass back down on the table.</p>
<p><i>'Everything'</i>, I think. Even the fucked up bits. Even the parts when you hooked up with other people – men, women...? What does he prefer now that he's an adult and has very likely experimented a bit – or much -  more. I mean, the way he looks, the swagger with which he carries himself – he's quite aware of his impact, of how he impresses others: His silky curls, his small waist, long legs... he's beautiful in a more mature way than before, not an enticing young colt but a graceful stallion.</p>
<p>A stallion? What am I even thinking?</p>
<p>I'm trying for nonchalance, just shrugging, spreading my hands on the table.</p>
<p>Yet what can we talk about but the past? What do we really have in common?</p>
<p>“What are you rehearsing?” It sounds so lame.</p>
<p>“Verdi.” Elio chuckles as he points at the street-sign outside the window. “I think his operas are a drag but no one asks my opinion.”</p>
<p>“I know, you prefer Bach. Or Ravel.” The memories still haunt me.</p>
<p>“You remember that?” He sounds truly surprised.</p>
<p>“Of course. It was the soundtrack of our summer.”</p>
<p>He lets it pass without acknowledging my sentiment. “I thought that was Joe Esposito.” He frowns a little. So he hasn't forgotten either.</p>
<p>“Have you been back to Rome?” I can't stop myself from asking.</p>
<p>“You're doing it again, dwelling on the past. It doesn't matter anymore, does it?”</p>
<p>“It does to me.” I look at him as he looks out the window, admiring his sharp profile.</p>
<p>“How's Micol.” He changes the subject too quickly. Gotcha.</p>
<p>“Good. Big. The new baby is due in November.”</p>
<p>“Ah, another Scorpio in your life.” He turns towards me, grins.</p>
<p>“Could also be a Sagittarius.” I'd really like another grappa. Or some wine. With a dinner. With Elio.</p>
<p>“And you still run your cafe?” Elio asks after another short silence, waving his hand to take in our surroundings. </p>
<p>I took him there on his visit over Christmas. I still remember how he made a face when he tasted the brew we served back then.</p>
<p>“A coffee chain now, actually. We're doing pretty good. I have five branches all over New York City and I want to expand to San Francisco. We have real Italian coffee now, don't worry. That's why I came over here, to learn more about it.”</p>
<p>“It's a science.”</p>
<p>“Most say it's a miracle sprinkled with witchcraft. A blood offering might be needed.”</p>
<p>He raises a delicate eyebrow. “Why not a branch in Boston?”</p>
<p>“Because New York is where I live and San Francisco is where I like to go.”</p>
<p>“But your family's in Boston.”</p>
<p>“My child. Soon children. They're a part of my world but not its center.” I hold Elio's gaze, hoping that I made myself clear.</p>
<p>“So, who's that now? Don't tell me there's no one.”</p>
<p>“There's no one.”</p>
<p>Elio rolls his eyes. “Don't tell me you lived celibate all these years.”</p>
<p>“I didn't say that. But going up to Boston every other weekend to meet your ex and your kid is a hell of a turnoff.”</p>
<p>“You don't have to tell me.” He looks down at the table, into his cold cappuccino.</p>
<p>“Look, Elio, you don't have to explain-”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Oliver, I acted like a spoiled-”</p>
<p>We both stop mid-sentence, staring at each other before a laugh erupts between us.</p>
<p>“What were you about to say? A spoiled...?”</p>
<p>“Brat. Child. A selfish, immature boy.” Elio shakes his head.</p>
<p>“You were barely eighteen.” I say softly. “I understood.”</p>
<p>“You did?” He sounds unconvinced.</p>
<p>“I didn't like it but I understood your reaction. And in retrospect I think we both needed the time to come to terms with it all.” Now it's my turn to make an all-encompassing gesture with my hand.</p>
<p>Elio still stares at me for a moment, then looks at his watch and curses.</p>
<p>“Fuck. Sorry, I have to run. I have an appointment with Simon Boccanegra.”</p>
<p>I frown. “Your boyfriend?”</p>
<p>Elio almost falls off his chair laughing. “Look it up, Oliver.” He calms a bit and gathers his bag. “How long will you be staying in Milan?” He asks as he fiddles with the strap.</p>
<p>“The whole week.”</p>
<p>“Maybe we can have dinner? Only if it fits your schedule, of course.”</p>
<p>“I'll see to it. Just call my hotel when it fits yours, leave a message.”</p>
<p>He nods, gets his wallet out to search for some money.</p>
<p>“It's on me. Hurry, or Simon will be angry.”</p>
<p>“I truly doubt that.”</p>
<p>When he's gone, I order another grappa. The waiter smiles at me when he sets it down on the table.</p>
<p>“Salute.” He winks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...and then the nurse passed me a stack of magazines, like, you know, adult magazines, before leaving me in that sterile room, giving me a thumbs up and a nod as to cheer me on. Just... they were all of women flashing their tits and pussies, those magazines, and I was... a bit lost... until I started to fantasize about the male nurse at reception...”</p>
<p>Elio is laughing hard by now and I have to wipe tears off my face as well.</p>
<p>“I had to hit this really small cup, that wasn't easy either, when I eventually got going. Boy, I spilled some, and then had to find tissues to wipe it off, and then had to hide that tissue somewhere because  I felt kinda embarrassed. So I stuffed it into my pocket and forgot it there and of course it came out in the wash and so I had bits of ejaculate-soaked tissue all over my socks and t-shirts... It was a mess.”</p>
<p>I refill our glasses because Elio isn't able to, his whole body shaking with laughter. We sit in a restaurant he picked – nothing too fancy but still very nice – having just ordered dolci.</p>
<p>We are on our second bottle. This should explain why I'm talking about the plights of artificial insemination.</p>
<p>“Oh god, that sounds awful.” Elio manages to say between guffaws of laughter.</p>
<p>“It was so, so weird.” I take a sip of the wine. It's deep red and strong and my head is swimming a little.</p>
<p>“I can imagine. That. Not it. Well, I mean...” He starts laughing again, blushes. “I can image the awkwardness.”</p>
<p>“Yeah...” I swirl the wine around in my glass, watch the candlelight flickering in the crimson whirl. “Poor Micol. She says she can't look at a turkey baster the same way she did before.”</p>
<p>Elio snorts his wine and has to cough.</p>
<p>“Stop it, please...” He whimpers, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “So I guess it will be vegetarian for Thanksgiving.”</p>
<p>Now it's my turn to splutter. “Oh god...” I groan, gagging at the thought of tofu.</p>
<p>Just then, the Tartufo ice cream arrives. We share. I watch Elio lick his spoon and have trouble swallowing.</p>
<p>He's simply gorgeous tonight. His curls reach the collar of his plain black shirt that accentuates his lean body. He has rolled up its sleeves to his elbows, exposing his strong, sinewy forearms, the skin very pale against the dark fabric. Yet there are still some freckles on the back of his nose...</p>
<p>“Have you been at the Villa over the summer?” I ask without thinking.</p>
<p>He shakes his head as a shadow passes over his face. “No-o.” He sighs, puts his spoon down. “Mama is getting... strange. Papa has no idea what's happening. They'll go to a specialist next month. Papa said... I should go somewhere else over the summer. To relax before Milan and the new job. So I went to Sicily.”</p>
<p>“I'm sorry to hear that about Annella. I'm sure they'll find out what's wrong with here and she'll be right as rain in no time.”</p>
<p>Elio just shrugs, plays with his spoon but doesn't pick it up again.</p>
<p>“So... did you go to Sicily alone?” I concentrate on scooping up a huge chunk of ice-cream.</p>
<p>He shakes his head, looks everywhere but at me. Where's our easy laughter gone?</p>
<p>“With a friend.” He says eventually. “At least I thought... well, it didn't work out. I flew to New York afterwards for a change of scenery.”</p>
<p>I almost drop my spoon. “You were in New York this summer? Why didn't you hit me up?” The words are out of my mouth before I can think. I sound petulant, accusing even.</p>
<p>Elio pushes back his chair, raises his hands. “I wasn't sure...”</p>
<p>“What? Did you think I would turn you down, would refuse to meet you?”</p>
<p>“I wasn't sure if I was ready.” He says it in a rush, too fast. “To see you again.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sorry.” I feel thoroughly put in my place. He had just experienced the end of an affair. Of course he hadn't been ready to warm up an old one. “But now you are?”</p>
<p>He shrugs. “You coming here seemed like a sign after... everything. So maybe enough time has passed?”</p>
<p>“Enough time for what?” The ice is melting between us and it seems as if neither of us cares.</p>
<p>“To move on. Or, rather, to move at all. I seriously felt trapped in that summer for a long time, you know. I compared everyone I met to you and they mostly fell short so... I don't know.” He shakes his head. There's a frown on his face.</p>
<p>“Yeah, me too.”</p>
<p>“So, I thought, if I would see you and you were jaded and balding-”</p>
<p>“Balding?!”</p>
<p>“-gone a bit squishy round the middle... like a dad... I thought I could finally move on, let go, find peace, find someone else...</p>
<p>“Balding!?”</p>
<p>“But you still look like a Greek god and you smell so nice, like coffee and spices and fruit-”</p>
<p>“Oh, you and your fruit...”</p>
<p>“But you'll have a second child soon so probably the time isn't right <i>again</i> but then when is it? So I thought <i>'fuck it, go out with him'</i> – and not even your awful stories about wanking in a cup put me off. And that says something.” He smiles at me from under his lashes, biting his lip.</p>
<p>“Are you saying what I think you're saying?”</p>
<p>“Can't you just speak plainly?” He leans in.</p>
<p>“My hotel is just round the corner.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>On our way over I say: “I looked him up, Simon Boccanegra. That was arrogant and mean and precocious, Elio Perlman.”</p>
<p>“And don't you like that?” He takes my chin between thumb and forefinger and kisses me, tasting of wine and sugar and cherries.</p>
<p>He doesn't let go of my hand when I ask for the key at reception, reminding me of his boldness in Rome all those years ago. We even kiss in the elevator, tumbling out the door when we reach my floor.</p>
<p>In my room, he pushes me back onto the bed, starts to unbutton my shirt.</p>
<p>“I want to ride you.” He says, his voice raw and deep.</p>
<p>I'm not stopping him.</p>
<p>A few minutes later we are both naked and I have two fingers deep inside him while he kisses my neck, my chest. I want to say that it is too fast, too quick – but who am I kidding? I have waited more than three years and by the sounds he makes he has too.</p>
<p>I watch his pale body gyrating above me, his milky skin soon slick with sweat as he moans and whispers my name. He's still so tight but I can also sense a new certainty within him. This man knows what he wants and likes and needs. And he takes it.</p>
<p>But he also gives pleasure back to me, pinching my nipples, pulling my hair until I gasp.</p>
<p>When I wrap my hand around his stiff, wet cock he bucks into it three, four times and then comes all over my chest, a hoarse cry escaping him. I fuck up into him as he claws onto my shoulders, my biceps, and it only takes seconds before I pulse inside him, filling the condom with a massive load.</p>
<p>“Now I have an idea how that cup felt.” He jokes as I pull out and tie the latex off.</p>
<p>“Shut up.” I don't bother to get up, just throw the used condom into the direction of the bin.</p>
<p>“Sooo...” Elio falls onto the mattress next to me with a tired sigh.</p>
<p>“Sooo...” I turn towards him, lazily blinking.</p>
<p>“I didn't fly to New York just for fun.” He looks suddenly earnest.</p>
<p>“No?” Something flutters inside my chest.</p>
<p>“No. I got an offer from the Philharmonics. But I didn't feel ready.”</p>
<p>“And now?” I whisper, holding my breath.</p>
<p>“Well, the offer still stands... but of course I have to fulfill my contract with La Scala.”</p>
<p>“Of course.” I nod. “How long is it?”</p>
<p>“A year.”</p>
<p>“A year.” I echo.</p>
<p>“We could write.” He shrugs. “You wrote me some damn sexy letters back then.”</p>
<p>“I did.”</p>
<p>“Think you could do it again?” His gaze doesn't waver.</p>
<p>“Sure.”</p>
<p>He smiles, snuggling closer. “The New York Philharmonics are a very good orchestra. One of the best in the world.” He sighs tenderly.</p>
<p>“They must be if they want you.” I kiss his forehead and try to move down to his lips but Elio has already fallen asleep, breathing steadily against my sticky ribcage.</p>
<p>I truly love Italy.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sooo... the next chapter will jump ten years forwad in time :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ten years on, in 2001...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Tommy!” I hear Elio yell through the apartment. “Everyone's waiting for you. Get your fucking things together!”</p>
<p>“No swearing, papa!” Something is thrown onto the floor. With force.</p>
<p>“Thomasin Harper, don't talk back at me like that!”</p>
<p>The sound of small feet running down the hall, a door banging. A high voice screams: “You started it! And you're <i>not</i> my dad!”</p>
<p>Here we go again...</p>
<p>And, well, technically, Tommy is right. I'm her dad. Biologically. And part-time socially. Like right now, at the end of her school's summer vacation.</p>
<p>That's why both my kids have their room here at our apartment. The same one I moved in when I returned from Italy almost fifteen years ago. Then it was just a shabby, rundown space with no real heating and running water in places where you didn't want it. Now, it's a loft. The village changed and with it my standard of accommodation – and at least for the latter that's a considerable improvement. I put in a lot of money and with that some walls, and now it's still a huge space with raw brick walls, but also with some privacy: a room for each child; a functioning bathroom; an office for me; a music room for Elio (when he's in town). Plus an open plan kitchen/living room.</p>
<p>And Elio's and my bedroom.</p>
<p>From which I now hear Elio bark: “I might not be your father, but as I have the pleasure of raising you and living with you at the moment, I demand you get your <i>fucking </i>things packed so we can all eventually leave here before this year draws to an end!”</p>
<p>“Urgh!” Something crashes against a wall. “I hate you!”</p>
<p>“Tommy.” It's Alex calm voice, sounding a little bit annoyed by his sister's tantrum. “Why don't you just pack your bag so we can-”</p>
<p>“You too, Brutus?” Tommy sounds truly wounded by her brother's betrayal.</p>
<p>“Oh my god.” Elio laughs. “These kids, I swear...”</p>
<p>He walks into the living room where I sit on the couch next to our luggage, his face buried in his hands.</p>
<p>“They love you. She loves you.” I tell him, opening my arms to pull him in.</p>
<p>“I know. I just wish she could show it in a more... docile way.” He's resting his forehead against my shoulder and I start to massage his tense back.</p>
<p>Just as he's about to lower himself into my lap for some serious cuddling a ball of rage bursts into the room. It is dressed in red leggings and a huge black jumper reaching over its bony knees. And green wellies. And a black velvet cape. </p>
<p>“I can't find my magic wand!” The ball shrieks.</p>
<p>Elio pulls away from me, reaches for the embodiment of wrath that is our daughter, gathers her up into his arms, lifts her to sit on his hip. “Where did you last see it?”</p>
<p>Tommy rubs her snotty nose against the front of his t-shirt. One of Elio's berets covers her head so only a few strands of brown curls are visible underneath, which she now twists around her finger. “I think I last had it when I sat under the piano yesterday and tried to spirit away Buster.”</p>
<p>Buster is our long-suffering cat. It's still here so the wand should be as well.</p>
<p>“So, maybe let me look for it there while you pack your stuff for the weekend at the beach?” Elio suggests and Tommy nods against his neck.</p>
<p>“Let me down. I'm ten, I''m not a baby.” She starts to struggle in his grip but not with real force.</p>
<p>“<i>Nearly</i> ten.” Elio says, smiling, as he drops her next to me on the couch. “It's still two months until your birthday.”</p>
<p>She sticks out her tongue before running away, hopefully to finish packing.</p>
<p>Elio sighs, still smiling. But then he asks: “What's all this anyway? Going away for a weekend to the cabin on Fire Island? It's September. Their school holidays are almost over... We stayed in town for Labor Day last weekend but go out there now?”</p>
<p>“Last weekend was too crowded. Now it'll be a romantic get-away.” I reassure him, forcing a grin onto my face. “We might even celebrate our belated ten year anniversary.”</p>
<p>To be honest, I almost forgot about it. Not that Elio cares much. He's not the kind of person to dwell on the past, doesn't expect flowers or a romantic dinner. He prefers me repairing the stuck kitchen window to buying him chocolates or jewelry. I doubt he even registered that there was an anniversary. Which is good. Because I had other things on my mind lately...</p>
<p>I really don't like making use of my knowledge of the future. Those shares I bought already lie heavy on my conscience and I try to donate as much money as I can to all sorts of charities. I try everything I can and my time allows to support the fight against HIV (though I have to admit that with my growing business responsibilities the time I can sacrifice to ActUp has diminished. Thank god, there's a younger generation now, fighting the fight.)</p>
<p>But for the coming days, I simply have to get my family out of New York City.</p>
<p>I've closed my cafes in town for the coming week, telling the staff it's for renovations, sending them home on full pay, even urging them to use the time off to leave the city, to take a break, enjoy late summer. I hope they've listened.</p>
<p>And now I have to get my loved ones away from here. I wish Tommy's spells would work and I could just spirit us all away to safety...</p>
<p>Because when I lean out of the living room window I can still see those two towers looming over Manhattan. They're close. Very close.</p>
<p>They won't be on Tuesday afternoon.</p>
<p>I take Elio's hand and quickly kiss it before he goes in search of Tommy's wand. I should probably check on Alex. </p>
<p>“Everything alright here?” I ask after knocking on his door.</p>
<p>He's sitting on his bed, staring down at his beeping Gameboy. He just nods, kicking his backpack with one foot. </p>
<p>“All in here.”</p>
<p>“Great. Cool.” I sit down next to him. “What're you playing?”</p>
<p>He rolls his blue eyes, pushes a strand of dirty-blond hair behind his ear but then tries to explain it to me but I only half-listen, watching his animated face. He's a teenager now, the first fuzz growing on his chin. I can't believe it. Where did the years go?</p>
<p>Since he's started school, he's been coming down to New York City every holiday. That's how Micol and I share the responsibility of parenting: school is in Boston, holidays are in New York or wherever Elio and I take the kids. Sometimes, we meet up with Micol and Michael someplace.</p>
<p>During summer, we usually go to Italy for a few weeks if Elio's schedule allows for it. Annella loves the kids when they are there, though forgets their names and their existence the moment they are out of sight.</p>
<p>This year, when we staid there just a few weeks ago, Sami seemed tired, for the first time overwhelmed with the task of caring for his wife. I urged him to see a doctor, to take care of himself as well, told him that Annella needs him, but he just shrugged. I hope he listened. I know Elio talked to him as well. He's worried, too. </p>
<p>Sometimes, I feel so powerless, despite – or because – I know what's coming. I try not to meddle with events, though. Who knows what will come off it? Maybe it will only make things worse? I already changed Elio's and my story. That has to be enough.</p>
<p>That and next Tuesday.</p>
<p>“And that's how you jump from one barrel to the other to collect those coins. Wanna try?” Alex pushes the Gameboy into my hand.</p>
<p>The next ten minutes I embarrass myself with the game, making my son laugh. Until Elio sticks his head into the room. “I found it. Inside the piano. Don't ask. I think we're all good to go now.”</p>
<p>I nod, patting Alex's shoulder.</p>
<p>“Okay, let's get going. Put that thing away, Alex.”</p>
<p>“Just five more minutes, Olli, I wanna finish this level.” My son bites his lower lip in concentration,  ignoring me to stare at the small screen.</p>
<p>He still doesn't call me dad. Which is still fine. Contrary to Tommy, he didn't grow up with the reality of me and Elio around from the start. He still kinda remembers the time before, when I was just this visiting on the odd weekends father, not a permanent fixture in his life. With a partner.</p>
<p>A male partner.</p>
<p>Though it doesn't seem he minds. In fact, he's surprisingly cool with me and Elio being together. For now. As he's becoming a teenager, I wonder how he'll deal with it when his own sexuality develops. I also have no idea if his school friends know. I mean, Elio and I attended a few of his school functions in primary school, like concerts or other performances, but those are no events where we would get openly physical. Knowing Micol, she wouldn't keep it a secret if some of the other parents asked about Alex's dad, but she doesn't shout our unusual arrangement from the rooftops either.</p>
<p>Maybe it's a sign that Alex never invited school friends to stay with us in New York for the holidays?</p>
<p>I wonder if that will change in middle-school...</p>
<p>But for now, I have more important things to care about as I drag our suitcases to the door, then get the cat carrier to hunt down Buster.</p>
<p>“We really have to take him with us?” Elio sounds doubtful.</p>
<p>“Yes, we have.”</p>
<p>It's a tough fight with the cat but I win – though some blood is spilled as I put the furry prisoner behind bars.</p>
<p>We are a sight in the elevator: Me, carrying a screaming cat. Tommy in her cape and wellies. Elio in a snot-smeared 1999 San Francisco Pride t-shirt. Alex standing some feet away, wearing a backpack and one of my old checkered flannel shirts tied around his waist and Elio's dark Ray Bans, trying to keep his distance, playing it cool as a tall, handsome boy maybe two years older gets in a few floors down.</p>
<p>It's just a short walk to the car rental three blocks away. Yet it takes us about fifteen minutes to load the car in the underground car park as Tommy and Alex fight over the seating arrangement.</p>
<p>“It's my turn to sit in the front!”</p>
<p>“You're not even old enough! Olli, she's not old enough!”</p>
<p>“But I'm dad's navigator!”</p>
<p>“Elio's my navigator. You both sit in the back with Buster.”</p>
<p>When Tommy is finally strapped in, glaring at her brother over the cat carrier holding an equally enraged feline, Elio pulls the passenger door shut with a sigh and massages his temples.</p>
<p>“Here we go.” I chime, trying to cheer my loved ones up. The attempt is met with annoyed silence.</p>
<p>It's a Friday afternoon, so traffic is thick and slow in Manhattan. </p>
<p>The kids are still squabbling in the back seat until Elio turns the radio on, starting to sing along to <i>Loverboy</i>. For a musician he's surprisingly off key but doesn't care. After the first song, Tommy joins him and the two get quite excited while me and Alex just hum along. When 112's <i>Peaches &amp; Cream</i> starts playing I can't help but grin, watching Elio blush from the corner of my eyes, looking first down into his lap and then over to me with something resembling a promise in his gaze.</p>
<p>I grip the wheel tighter. This weekend might bring some fun times after all.</p>
<p>“I'm hungry, dad!” Tommy declares.</p>
<p>“We've been in the car for what, twenty minutes?” I remind her.</p>
<p>“Still, I'm hungry.”</p>
<p>So Elio digs out some bagels and Mars bars and when the kids are shut up for the moment, happily munching, he asks me again: “So, a little break on the island. What prompted that?”</p>
<p>“Can't I just be romantic?”</p>
<p>Elio looks ahead out on the interstate, somewhat tense. “We'll see.”</p>
<p>“I told you a year in advance...”</p>
<p>“And I canceled everything for the upcoming week. It just seems... odd. It's not what you would usually do.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for calling me a boring, predictable old man.” I bite out, shifting up a gear.</p>
<p>“I didn't mean-”</p>
<p>I reach for his thigh, squeeze it. “I know.”</p>
<p>“I love it! I love the beach!” Tommy declares from the back seat between two bites, sending crumbs flying. Her brother makes retching noises and Elio quickly hands some tissues back to them to prevent the worst. We'll have to return the car in a somewhat passable state after all.</p>
<p>When we reach Throgs Neck Bridge, thankfully the traffic thins. We don't have to take a ferry anymore, there are now bridges connecting Fire Island with the main land. So, after only about a two hours drive, we arrive at our house in Cherry Grove.</p>
<p>It's more a big shed, actually, built of wind-bleached wood; a few small but cozy rooms, a kitchen with a cast-iron stove, a big deck outside facing the sea. Still no electricity. No phone. No TV. I hope Alex packed some batteries for his Gameboy.</p>
<p>It's not the seventies anymore, so it's safe for kids here. No orgies in the dunes any longer, no naked men lounging around, on the prowl for fresh meat. Not that I witnessed any of it – or would have been interested in it when Elio and I first came out here in 1993. A friend of his invited us. It reminded Elio of Italy, of the beach near the villa. It's the closest to home he can get over here, he says.</p>
<p>When his friend died he inherited the beach house.</p>
<p>The kids know nothing of this history as they jump out of the car, screaming with joy (even Alex, who usually tries to act so grown-up) when they see their mum and Michael sitting on the deck in the sun, sharing a beer, waving over at us.</p>
<p>“Oh, how <i>romantic</i>. Micol's here.” Elio quips.</p>
<p>“You love her.” I gently shove his shoulder.</p>
<p>“I do. But I didn't expect her staying over on our romantic weekend.” He squints at me. “You're not planning kid number three with her, are you?”</p>
<p>I just take his face between my palms and kiss him. “No. I left the turkey baster at home, don't worry.”</p>
<p>He shudders. “Good.” Then opens the passenger door and climbs out, the wind tousling his curls. “Micol!” He throws his hands up in the air and the mother of my children flies into his arms.</p>
<p>“Elio!” She shouts, throwing him onto the sand. They roll around in it for a bit while I and Michael shake hands and start to unload the car. Inside, the kids already fight over who gets which room.</p>
<p>When everyone's settled, we all take a quick dip in the ocean, lazing on the beach afterwards while Buster roams the dunes. I rub sun tan lotion on Elio's back, taking my time with it while we watch Tommy and Alex splashing in the waves.</p>
<p>In the evening, we cook pasta with local clams for dinner and play Uno with the kids until Tommy starts to cry when she loses and Alex's fingers twitch for his Gameboy.</p>
<p>When we have tugged them into bed – Elio being forced by Tommy to read her again a chapter from her favorite book at the moment, <i>The Goblet Of Fire</i> – we sit out on the terrace, sharing a bottle of wine and Elio plugs on his old guitar he keeps here (it's too damp for a piano).</p>
<p>“So... what's<i> this</i>?” Micol asks, gesturing between all of us. </p>
<p>Elio grins, lowering his head over the strings, his curls obscuring his face.</p>
<p>“I just wanted to have the people I love most in the world close for a weekend.” I say.</p>
<p>Elio leans over and kisses my cheek. Michael rests his head on Micol's shoulder, entwining their fingers.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but... you were rather specific that it had to be this weekend...”</p>
<p>“The weather forecast was good.”</p>
<p>“And you knew that a year in advance?” Elio murmurs.</p>
<p>I refill his wine glass. “I better get another bottle.”</p>
<p>When I return, the conversation has moved on: the kids schools, Elio's upcoming European gig with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael's research into immunosuppressive drugs.</p>
<p>I watch Elio's sharp profile against the soft blue darkness, hear Micol laugh at one of his sarcastic remarks.</p>
<p>These two...</p>
<p>Elio played piano at her and Michael's wedding a few years ago. He and Michael are the kids' guardians should anything happen to me or Micol.</p>
<p>I feared that there might be animosity between them, even hatred. But when they met (not long after Elio came to New York in 1992, because Micol insisted that she had to know this important person in my life and Elio had been curious about the mother of my children) they got on like a house on fire. In the end, it was me third-wheeling that afternoon, which turned into an evening full of wine and laughter while these two became acquainted.</p>
<p>Now they are almost best friends. I know Elio calls her when we fight. I know she calls him when she's frustrated with the kids. When the four of us go out, it happens that people think they are the married couple and me and Michael their gay friends...</p>
<p>I reach out for Elio now, my arm across his shoulder, pulling him against my chest as he keeps talking about Claudio Abbado and how much he looks forward working with him.</p>
<p>Since ten years, this is my reality now. And every morning when I wake up, there's still that moment of fear that it's all just been a dream...</p>
<p>My other life is more and more sinking into obscurity. I think it really started when Tommy was born and, well, was a Thomasin instead of a Thomas. It somehow set me free from comparing this new life with my other... I realized that somewhere along the line the road had branched in two directions and I must have walked onto a new, unknown path without being aware of it. It wasn't even a conscious decision, just the random luck of the universe.</p>
<p>There's no use to try and analyze it, I've learned. I just have to go with it and make the most of it.</p>
<p>And only now and then I try to outwit destiny, cheating fate. A little.</p>
<p>The weekend passes peacefully with swimming, beach volleyball, and strolls by the waterside, Elio and Tommy collecting shells and colorful glass shards, smoothed and sanded by salt, wind and the sea. They put them in a huge bowl on the dining table, calling it their treasure hoard. </p>
<p>Tommy decides to wear her cape on the beach instead of sun tan lotion, her nose buried in a book most of the time as she sits cross-legged on a towel. Alex gets sand into his Gameboy so Elio teaches him guitar to distract him.</p>
<p>By Sunday, he can play <i>Smells Like Teen Spirit</i> as well as <i>Stairway To Heaven</i>.</p>
<p>Elio cooks pasta and grills fish Michael and I caught.</p>
<p>Micol sunbathes on the deck, pretending to read but mostly sleeping.</p>
<p>It's so relaxing. The calm before the storm only I am aware is coming.</p>
<p>After breakfast on Sunday, we wander into the small village and get ice cream for all. Elio and I hold hands as we trudge the wooden walkways, feeling completely safe here. </p>
<p>Later, back at the cabin, everyone packs their things while Elio makes sandwiches for lunch. Tommy and Alex run after Buster who refuses to be put back into the carrier but can't escape their combined effort.</p>
<p>We eat outside on the deck, making plans for the quickest way home on a Sunday afternoon, me and Elio going back to New York, the rest heading for Boston. Tommy climbs in my lap and steals my sandwich. Alex argues with his mother because he wants to meet his friends for sleepover the next week but Micol has to remind him of a school project he has to finish. He sulks for the rest of the meal. </p>
<p>It's decided that we'll leave around four. </p>
<p>When everyone is napping to rest before the drive, I slip outside and cut the fuel pipes on both our cars.</p>
<p>It's a bit chaotic as we load the cars, sort luggage, pets and kids, hug and kiss each other good-bye. Then the confusion is even greater when the cars don't start. </p>
<p>Micol tries to fix them but has no luck.</p>
<p>“A weasel?” Michael suggest.</p>
<p>“More likely a water rat.” Elio growls, his arms crossed over his chest.</p>
<p>Only the kids are happy, changing again into their bathing suits as it becomes clear that our stay will be extended.</p>
<p>There's no phone in the house and no car rental on the whole island. The garage in the next village is closed on Sundays. </p>
<p>That evening, we eat canned ravioli. The atmosphere is subdued but we all agree that there's nothing to be done.</p>
<p>“Odd, isn't it, both our cars breaking down...” Elio muses as we get into bed early, tired both from the sea air and the earlier upset.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but these things happen.” I shrug as I spoon him from behind, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck. But when my hands start to roam his body he sighs.</p>
<p>“I don't think I'm in the mood right now.”</p>
<p>We lie silent for a moment as my arm returns to just hug his waist.</p>
<p>“It's really convenient that I have nothing on the next week.” He says eventually into the dark.</p>
<p>I feign sleep so I don't have to answer him. What could I say anyway? </p>
<p>The next day, Monday, Michael and Micol walk to a phone box in the village to call their work places. Michael is quite calm but Micol is furious, swearing to buy a shotgun to shoot every nutria on the island, cursing Buster for being a lazy parasite. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, me and Elio set out to the garage, but it turns out they'll only be able come see to our cars the next day as they have to order the specific spare parts first.</p>
<p>We go grocery shopping on our way back to the cabin, making sure to grab some beers to smooth tempers.</p>
<p>At least the kids are happy that they can skip school. Micol seems to have decided to make the best of those unexpected days off and spends the afternoon on the beach with Elio while Michael and I paint the deck's fence, something I always say I have to do but never find the time for.</p>
<p>From time to time, Elio shoots me a suspicious look, as if he suspects something but is not sure what to make of it.</p>
<p>That evening, the mood is much more relaxed as everyone has accepted our situation.</p>
<p>When Micol and I do the dishes, however, she suddenly asks: “Everything alright between you two?”</p>
<p>I frown, drying a plate. “Sure. Why?”</p>
<p>“Oh, it's just... Elio said you've been a little strange lately...”</p>
<p>He just knows me too well... “I've had a lot of work. And with the kids staying over for the summer-”</p>
<p>“I know you're branching out to Toronto. If it's too much you should have said-” There's no malice in her voice, just concern.</p>
<p>“No, that's not it. But maybe I left him alone too much? With the kids...”</p>
<p>“Don't be silly, Elio adores them. He would love to spend even more time with them.”</p>
<p>“How do you know?” I put the plate down.</p>
<p>“Because he told me. He said Tommy's piano playing is quite promising...” And we drift off into safe parents' talk again, leaving behind the rocky patch of relationship strain.</p>
<p>But when we go to bed that night I trap Elio between my thighs and force him to look down on me.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry if I seemed absent and distant lately.” He's trying to wiggle free but I won't let him. “I love you, you know that, right.”</p>
<p>He shrugs.</p>
<p>Okay, something more is needed here. I rub my thumbs over his hip bones, then up to his still concave belly.</p>
<p>“Want me to show you how much?”</p>
<p>He just hums but when I look up his eyes have gone dark.</p>
<p>I mouth his cock first through his boxers, then pull them down.</p>
<p>“You have to be quiet though, the kids are next door.” I grin against his skin.</p>
<p>He's not that quiet as I swallow him, my index finger sneaking between his cheeks to rub his hole, but I let it pass. At least he's trying.</p>
<p>He returns the favor afterwards, on his knees in front of me between my spread legs, his hands behind his back so I can fuck his mouth as I please. Now it's my turn to thrive for silence and I fail even more miserable than he did.</p>
<p>We fall asleep holding each other, discussing my trip to Berlin planned for next month to visit him for a week.</p>
<p>I have even booked a ticket to preserve appearance. And maybe the plane will actually fly after all? It's possible, if what I've planned succeeds.</p>
<p>In the early hours next morning, I slip out of bed, put on a cap and a dark jumper and jog into the village. There I make one phone call. I've thought about it a lot and decided to keep it simple and short. I've no idea how to best make a convincing bomb threat (and didn't dare to look it up on the internet) so I can only hope that my accent will be convincing and my words make the desired impression.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but I wipe the receiver after hanging up. Before I return to the cabin I throw my cap into the sea by the harbor. </p>
<p>It's still only dawn when I come back to the house and make coffee. But despite the early hour Elio walks into the kitchen soon after, eyeing me suspiciously.</p>
<p>“Sorry, did I wake you?” I ask, fiddling with the stove, poking the coals.</p>
<p>“What's all this about? Running, at this time of day?” His voice is still hoarse from sleep (and sucking cock the night before).</p>
<p>“Couldn't sleep. And I have to keep in shape. Won't want you exchanging me for a younger model.” I pour him some coffee, then head for the shower. Elio follows me and the coffee is forgotten as we spend some quality time under the lukewarm spray of the outdoor shower, the only sounds except our moans the rolling sea and the screaming gulls above us as the sun rises over the ocean.</p>
<p>We sit huddled together on a blanket afterwards, watching the daylight creep up the sandy beach. It promises to be a beautiful day.</p>
<p>The house comes slowly alive behind us but we ignore the others, enjoying our own intimate bubble. </p>
<p>Until the mechanics arrive with their van, honking their horn.</p>
<p>We walk up to them hand in hand. A small group has already gathered around the cars. Micol's face is ashen. Michael looks as if he could need a drink despite the hour.</p>
<p>“Have you heard?” They ask.</p>
<p>In the pocket of my shorts, I ball my free hand into a fist, feeling Elio tense next on me.</p>
<p>“Have heard what?” He asks, his eyes flicking from one to the other, sounding worried.</p>
<p>“In New York. A plane flew into the World Trade Center.” Micol says, sounding shocked. </p>
<p>“What?” Elio almost laughs in disbelieve.</p>
<p>“It seems to have been a terrorist attack. Thankfully, there'd been a bomb threat before, so the building was almost empty.” Michael explains, his voice shaking. </p>
<p>“It looks like a movie.” One mechanic says, shaking his head. “The towers are burning.”</p>
<p>“Mum, dad, what movie? What towers?” Tommy asks, skipping over to us in her Harry Potter pajama, rubbing her bleary eyes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay, I think there will be one more chapter. Maybe two...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It wasn't my intention to make this so sad... it just happened.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry that this took so long.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next few days are a blur. Standing in line to use the few payphones on the island. People opening their houses to let strangers in to make much needed phone calls. Shocked silences during conversations. Gathering around TV sets in our neighbors cabins. People bursting into tears in public, and others comforting them.</p>
<p>The way Micol stares at me.</p>
<p>The way Elio stares at me...</p>
<p>We slowly learn that no one of our circle of friends, acquaintances and family got injured. Only four people died.</p>
<p>Four.</p>
<p>Whenever I doubt what I did, I think of this number: four.</p>
<p>I'm half-waiting for the FBI, or CIA, or at least the NYPD to arrest me, kick down the door of the our beach shed and drag me outside in the middle of the night, to interrogate me at some secret torture facility...</p>
<p>But nothing happens.</p>
<p>So by the end of the week, when the dust has literally settled, it's decided that everyone will return home. Micol, Michael and the kids to Boston – me and Elio to New York City.</p>
<p>Both Alex and Tommy still seem a little numb when they say good-bye. But they look healthy and seem at ease, their tanned faces trying to smile, their hair sun-bleached, their warm skin smelling of salt and sea, and I have to fight the impulse to keep them hugged to my chest forever. To keep them close to me.</p>
<p>This world is so big and bad and I can't live with the thought of these two precious human beings  encountering to all the mean, vicious things waiting to get their claws into them out there.</p>
<p>But then their mother honks the horn of her car and they pull away.</p>
<p>They'll be save. At least as save as possible.</p>
<p>Elio and I get in our car, I fumble with the keys, adjust the mirror, stare after Micol's battered Volvo getting smaller and smaller until they turn a corner and are out of sight.</p>
<p>Elio has been uncharacteristically quiet those past days. I want to believe it's the shock but fear otherwise. Those sideways glances when he thinks I'm not paying attention. Now he's doing it again...</p>
<p>Instead of saying something I turn up the radio. It's the news, another report about the attack.</p>
<p>I turn it off again.</p>
<p>When I look over at Elio he's staring out of the window at the landscape passing by, slowly changing from rural to urban.</p>
<p>I want to ask what's the matter, want to ask if Elio's okay. Wants to shake him and force, beg, threaten him to spit it out.</p>
<p>But I don't.</p>
<p>I keep my hands on the wheel, keep driving.</p>
<p>Back in the city, our apartment is surprisingly unscathed. Just a few windows broke and the janitor boarded them up with some foil. Dust has trickled in, though, now dancing in the sunbeams as I close the door behind us.</p>
<p>Buster meows in his carrier, scratching its latch to be released into his habitat.</p>
<p>“I need a shower.” Elio mumbles and disappears in the direction of our bedroom. He stays in the bath a long time while I unpack, finding one of Tommy's bathing suits and a pair of Alex's shorts between our stuff. I shake the sand from our dirty clothes and it forms little white-golden dunes on the bedroom floor. I stare at the dirt, sitting down on the bed, just breathing in the familiar smell of home.</p>
<p>In. Out.</p>
<p>But I feel strange here, suddenly. Like an alien. As if I shouldn't be here, as if something is profoundly wrong.</p>
<p>I haven't felt like that since the first few days in Italy fourteen years ago...</p>
<p>I don't even notice when Elio walks in, naked, only jump when his cold, damp hand touches my tense neck.</p>
<p>“Relax.” He murmurs, sliding his hands beneath my old t-shirt, pulling it off, starts to knead my back. Kisses my nape, wraps himself around me like an octopus before climbing a bit clumsily into my lap.</p>
<p>“Fuck me.” Elio whispers in my ear  and bites my shoulder, hard, until I throw him down onto the mattress, hovering over him for a moment before succumbing to the overpowering need for having him.</p>
<p>It's brutal and fast and lacks any skill; our grunting fills the bedroom as I plow into Elio again and again, burying my face in his wet curls to hide my tears.</p>
<p>Afterwards, Elio rubs his backside, smiling lopsided.</p>
<p>“Wow.” The smile doesn't reach his eyes.</p>
<p>We eat what we find in the kitchen, later. The power was cut after the towers came down, so everything left in the fridge has gone off. But there are a few apples sitting on the counter, and we raid Elio's secret hidden stash of delicious Italian cookies he gets from a deli in Little Italy whenever he's in town.</p>
<p>We get crumbs on the bed-sheets but neither of us cares.</p>
<p>“What will we do now?” Elio asks eventually.</p>
<p>“Well, has Berlin decided to proceed?” I know Elio wasn't talking about our jobs but I will be damned if I admit as much.</p>
<p>Elio just stares into his lap before angling for another cookie.</p>
<p>“I've been thinking... maybe I should go back to Italy. For a while. Until things are back to normal. Mama is getting worse. And papa...” he drifts off, shrugs.</p>
<p>My throat is dry. The cookie just turned to ash in my mouth.</p>
<p>“I could close the cafes, I suppose-”</p>
<p>“Alone. I meant to go alone.” He still doesn't look up. “I need some time to think.”</p>
<p>“Elio-”</p>
<p>But he presses a finger to my lips, his eyes searching for mine dark, intense.</p>
<p>“Just don't.”</p>
<p>The next few days are filled with work as I try to reopen the cafes., talk to my staff, try to allocate groceries, get some cleaning up done. I need to keep busy, spending long hours at my different branches or locked in my office at home.</p>
<p>Elio gets on the first flight that leaves for Rome four days after we returned to the city. I don't see him off at the airport. In fact, I only realize that he's gone when I return to an empty apartment and find his scribbled note he left for me on my pillow:</p>
<p>
  <i>'Gone back home. Will be in touch. Give me time.'</i>
</p>
<p>It's not even signed. I crumple it up in my fist, standing next to our bed, unable to move as the sun sets over the city and the apartment darkens.</p>
<p>He's taken most of his clothes but left his books, CDs, records. Our photographs.</p>
<p>That's a good sign, right?</p>
<p>I find an unwashed shirt at the bottom of our hamper and take it to bed with me every night until it just smells like me.</p>
<p>A letter arrives from him a week later. </p>
<p>
  <i>Oliver,<br/>
I guess I could have emailed you – papa actually got a computer and internet installed at the villa! Can you believe? - but somehow a letter seems more fitting for us.<br/>
Mama isn't well. She didn't recognize me when I arrived. And Mafalda can't handle her care any longer, as she's almost seventy herself by now.<br/>
Papa ignores it all. Or denies what's happening. He can't accept how mama is changing.<br/>
I think he's having an affair.<br/>
Anyway, that's not why I'm writing to you. I'm just stalling, as I'm sure you realized by now...<br/>
It's just... who are you, Oliver? Lately, I'm wondering...<br/>
I have the strangest feelings when I'm with you, like it's all happening to someone else; déjà vus, as if our whole life together is a recurring dream. No, that's not what I mean... an illusion. As if we are living other people's lives, and I get aware of it from time to time, as if looking in, as if watching a movie...<br/>
And this feels unsettling. It's like living a lie. I'm aware that I must sound mad to you. Do I? It's like losing myself in a maelstrom of false memories. Sometimes I can't trust what's real anymore.<br/>
I hope I can find myself here, at home, again. I need time to myself. I'm sorry, this must come out of nowhere for you. We were so happy... but were we? Really?<br/>
I'm not sure I can trust my feelings any longer.<br/>
But if I've found myself, I will be able to find you again. I hope.<br/>
Please don't say anything to the kids. Tell them I'm working in Europe. I don't want to upset them.<br/>
Please don't call. I know you left messages. Papa has started to worry about us. He doesn't need that  on top of everything.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Take care!</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>I love you</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Elio</i>
</p>
<p>I'm aware that he doesn't mention when we'll see each other again, when he'll come back to me.</p>
<p>If.</p>
<p>I reread the letter one, two, a hundred times. Folding it, unfolding it, until the creaks in the paper wear thin. Autumn comes, then winter. When Tommy and Alex ask about Elio, I tell them about rehearsals, concerts and recording sessions in Europe. But Alex can use the internet at school and when he googles Elio's name nothing like this comes up.</p>
<p>Tommy doesn't ask anymore where Elio is on her birthday. He's written her a card and has send her a Harry Potter scarf. When Tommy is unwrapping her other presents, I bring it to my face to smell it – but I only get a whiff of wool and plastic.</p>
<p>Eventually, Micol calls me. She's worried, I can tell by her voice.</p>
<p>“You've heard from him?” I ask her.</p>
<p>“We spoke briefly, a few times. I mean, I lost you, too, so I guess I can relate-”</p>
<p>“He didn't lose me. He left.” I sound so bitter, I'm shocked.</p>
<p>“I know how it is when you slip away. You don't like confrontations, Oliver, you just tiptoe out of peoples' lives.”</p>
<p>“That's not fair. I tip-toed nowhere with you and the kids. I'm still there for you.” Her words hurt.</p>
<p>“Someone is. And he's looking like Oliver. But he's not the same man who left for Italy.”</p>
<p>“Micol, that was ages ago. People change.”</p>
<p>“I suppose so.” She falls silent and I have nothing to say. “Talk to Alex. Please. Tell him the truth.”</p>
<p>“But what <i>is</i> the truth, Micol?”</p>
<p>“You should know.”</p>
<p>When the kids come down after Thanksgiving, I tell my son that Elio and I have separated for a while. That he needs time. Space. I give him the telephone number of the villa as well as Elio's email-address.</p>
<p>Over the winter, my son hears more from Elio than I do. </p>
<p>When I'm up in Boston in January 2002 for his fourteens birthday and he unwraps a CD Elio has sent him, Tommy suddenly starts to cry.</p>
<p>This only happens in extreme emergencies. Like when she broke her leg falling off her bicycle aged six. Not even when their dog had to be put down did my daughter shed a tear.</p>
<p>But now she's inconsolable.</p>
<p>Micol gives me a look and I carry Tommy over into her room. We sit on her small bed and I tell her that Elio is staying in Italy.</p>
<p>“How long?” She sniffles.</p>
<p>“As long as he needs to.”</p>
<p>“Don't you miss him?” My daughter stares up at me from her swollen eyes, wiping snot into the sleeve of her jumper. It used to belong to Alex. Why are they growing up so fast?</p>
<p>“Terribly.” I say. And then it's me crying and my little daughter holding me.</p>
<p>“Let's write to him.” She eventually suggests.</p>
<p>“You do.”</p>
<p>She does, filling page after page until her notepad is full.</p>
<p>“You want to draw him something?” I ask.</p>
<p>“I'm not a baby, daddy.” Tommy huffs.</p>
<p>I post her letter without reading it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It's March when my phone rings in the middle of the night. </p>
<p>“He left. The fucker left! Just like this. Puff! Left me and mama...”</p>
<p>No 'hello', no 'how are you?'. After months of silence.</p>
<p>“Elio, are you drunk?”</p>
<p>“So what? I'm sitting here in the middle of nowhere in a crumbling house with a woman who has no idea who I am, who I have to remind to eat, to use the toilet, to wash... and now my father has fucked off with a girl my age! I think that warrants a drink or two!” He sounds so angry it makes me afraid.</p>
<p>“Is it that bad?”</p>
<p>“Worse!”</p>
<p>Silence, I just hear him breathe.</p>
<p>“I want to come home, Oliver.” Now it sounds as if he's crying.</p>
<p>“You should stay. Your mum needs you.” My chest hurts as I say those words. “And your dad-”</p>
<p>“Ha, did you know what he wrote in the note he left for us? He didn't even tell me face to face. Just wrote that his days are numbered and that life is too short-”</p>
<p>“Life <i>is</i> short.” How am I to tell Elio that his father will be dead by August? It's one thing to save a few thousand strangers, but how am I to handle this? “Just... stay there for a little while longer. Find a good carer for your mum...”</p>
<p>“You don't want me back, is that it? Have you moved on, found someone else?” I hear sarcasm. Hurt. Desperation.</p>
<p>Let Elio hate me and not his dad. He won't regret hating me as much as he'll eventually regret hating his father.</p>
<p>“It's not that... but I'm not sure you've found what you were looking for. Yet.”</p>
<p>“I thought you loved me? I thought you missed me?” He's crying again, despite his seething tone.</p>
<p>“I do. But right now is not a good time for us-”</p>
<p>“Fuck you, Oliver.”</p>
<p>The sound of the receiver thrown down rings in my ears. I can picture him in his father study, angrily swiping books and notes off the desk with a dramatic gesture before throwing himself onto the red velvet couch...</p>
<p>I stroke Buster who's been staring up at me in his catlike way, half-bored, half-knowing. He always loved Elio more than me, despite Elio's indifference towards him. “Sorry, buddy, it'll be just you and me for a little longer...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I call Elio at the end of July but can't reach him.</p>
<p>It's kind of a relief when I receive an email – forwarded from Micol – informing me that Sami's funeral will be held at August 8th at the synagoge in Milan before he'll be laid to rest in the Jewish part of the Cimitero Monumentale. No flowers, please, but a donation to the Italian Alzheimer's And Dementia Help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I don't feel anything booking a flight, packing, dropping Buster off at a neighbor. I don't recall going to the airport until I stand at check-in. On the plane, I drop a Xanax, swallow it with a glass of Bourbon, and only wake up when we land in Milan.</p>
<p>I don't feel anything when I see Micol, Michael, Alex and Tommy waiting for me after immigration. They hug me and I'm sure I say something but I don't hear my own voice.</p>
<p>I don't feel anything as we drive through the beautiful, familiar countryside, the summer sun high in the blue sky just as it had been fifteen years ago...</p>
<p>Only as we pull up in front of the villa am I woken from my stupor.</p>
<p>Elio is standing in the driveway, thin, pale, shoulders hunched, his hair greasy and too long, wearing a long-sleeve that must once have been black but is now faded to gray, its hem frayed, and an old pair of jeans. He's barefoot – and that somehow breaks my heart.</p>
<p>I climb out of the taxi and don't care what the others do – I run up to him and hug him so hard I might crush a few bones.</p>
<p>And he hugs me back, sacks against me and sighs: “Oliver.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm sorry for the long wait. I had a lot going on. But I really wanted to finish this story. I hope you like it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Today's the day I've feared to come for 20 years.</p>
<p>It's the day I left Elio, the villa and Italy, to go back to my <i>then</i> home in the States, to meet my <i>then</i> wife and my two sons.</p>
<p>The day the car crash happened... and everything else that I still don't understand but have come to accept.</p>
<p>The day my new life began.</p>
<p>A happier life.</p>
<p>It has taken me years to acknowledge it but... yes, I'm happier with Elio than I've ever been with Micol and our two boys, now only fading memories as a new Alex and a different Tommy have... not truly taken their places, but are a huge part of this new, happy life.</p>
<p>It's still somewhat hard to even think these things, but they are true and I'm tired of lying to myself. I've left self-deceit behind in my old life. Or so I tell myself.</p>
<p>Well, just one more day... than this will all be over. The comparison of one life to another, of one fate to another...</p>
<p>Just one more day until I enter uncharted territory.</p>
<p>Finally.</p>
<p>Though, the last five years have been... good. Surprisingly good.</p>
<p>I should admit that. I should tell Elio how much I love him. How happy he's making me.</p>
<p>Who knows if I will still be here tomorrow? To keep loving him.</p>
<p>After our separation we only grew closer together. I think we both had time to reflect and to realize what we had in each other.</p>
<p>The kids had missed Elio terribly.</p>
<p>And he had missed them maybe even more.</p>
<p>He is their second father. There's no doubt about it.</p>
<p>And I... well, it had been such a weird time. I had no idea if and what he suspected. And I couldn't talk to him about what had happened... it had been gnawing away on us, this undercurrent of suspicion. Elio must have sensed that I'd wanted to talk to him – but of course couldn't tell him the truth.</p>
<p>I now know he sensed that something was off. That he mistook my clandestine behavior for something that had to do with our relationship. Suspected me of cheating, of preparing to leave him. So he acted first. I should have known that for Elio a preemptive strike seemed the best defense.</p>
<p>It still hurts that I will never be able to tell him the truth.</p>
<p>But that's the price I have to pay.</p>
<p>For being with him.</p>
<p>The love of my life.</p>
<p>And even if that ends today – it's been 20 good years.</p>
<p>During the last five, we've lived mostly in Italy. Annella's state slowly worsened after Sami's death. Elio's dad had been taking way more care of her than he'd led on, as Elio discovered after his father's death.</p>
<p>We tried carers and nurses, but she's afraid of strangers – and in her state, everyone she hadn't known for at least 20 years falls in that category.</p>
<p>So it's Mafalda, Anchise, Manfredi, Elio and me.</p>
<p>Well, mostly Elio and me, as the others are even older than Annella. They still want to do their bit but... yeah... we don't want to discourage them as the feeling of still being useful keeps them going but more and more often Elio and I have to literally mop up after them.</p>
<p>Anyway, by now it's so bad that Annella doesn't even remember Elio's name. Or that he is her son. She still vaguely remembers that she knows him, but doesn't recognize him any longer. She often asks about her son, though. Which, yeah... it's hard for Elio. Very hard.</p>
<p>He's stopped touring, and has once again taken up a position with the Scala's orchestra in Milan. Of course, now he's a star and can choose his appearances. He plays concerts there only a few times a year.</p>
<p>He also teaches masterclasses at the conservatory.</p>
<p>He says it's enough, that it's okay. Fulfilling.</p>
<p>But if he's not aware that I'm looking at him, he appears... sad. Jaded.</p>
<p>On some days he can spend hours playing the piano in the living room. But sometimes he doesn't touch it for weeks.</p>
<p>I've sold my coffee chain and am spending my fortune on the crumbling villa. And on my kids' education. I travel to the states a few times a year for some weeks to be close to Alex and Tommy (grating on Alex's nerves as I've reserved myself the right to stay at the apartment in the Village where he now lives as a university student at NYU, taking care of ancient Buster). But the center of my life is now in Italy.</p>
<p>It's the house. And Elio.</p>
<p>My world might seem small but it's rich, filled with love.</p>
<p>What more can I ask for?</p>
<p>I yawn, stretch, blink against the sunlight spreading in our bedroom as I pull Elio closer to me, press my nose into his curls as I watch the shadows retreat. It's a sunny day, like 20 years ago...</p>
<p>I made Elio cancel all appointments today. Made him swear to stay in bed with me all day.</p>
<p>Alex had asked me to visit him in New York months ago. I declined. (He came out to me three years ago. I'm aware he wants us to meet his boyfriend, it sounds serious, but I told him not this week.)</p>
<p>I've booked us flights for next week.</p>
<p>But today I'm not taking any risks. We'll just stay at home, in bed, we won't go anywhere, so there can't be another car crash. This life will not end today, getting wiped out on a whim of fate.</p>
<p>I won't allow it.</p>
<p>Now Elio nestles against me. He's still half asleep but warm and hard and a little sweaty as I pull him on top of me and kiss him and let him rut against me, swallowing his soft moans until he comes all over my thigh.</p>
<p>He slides back onto the mattress with a small huff and a salacious grin on his face and I go down to make us some coffee.</p>
<p>When I carry it up fifteen minutes later he's in the shower.</p>
<p>“I said you are not allowed to leave the bed!” I shout.</p>
<p>I hear him laughs before he emerges from the bathroom, toweling his hair.</p>
<p>“Coffee!” He throws the towel on the floor and himself onto the mattress while I pour him a cup.</p>
<p>We manage to stay secluded until mid-morning, cuddling, reading, Elio playing with his new phone... until there's a commotion outside in the corridor.</p>
<p>“What the hell...” Elio mutters.</p>
<p>There are shrill voices echoing through the villa – one is Mafalda's, the other Annella's – and it soon becomes apparent that there's a situation.</p>
<p>Elio curses some more and pulls on his pants and a shirt, heading outside despite my protest.</p>
<p>I have no choice but to follow him.</p>
<p>But I'm too late.</p>
<p>There are screams. A bang. A rumble. Then silence.</p>
<p>I run into the corridor half naked. Elio voice is coming from downstairs.</p>
<p>“No! No!”</p>
<p>When I look over the banister he squats at the foot of the main stairs, shaking his mop of dark curls, cradling a heap of limps...</p>
<p>Apparently, Annella has been searching for Sami once again. In her frenzy, she fell down the stairs. Mafalda couldn't do anything, even tried to catch her, but now they are both lying at the bottom of the stairs. Annella is bleeding from a head wound, silently weeping, while Mafalda folds her arm against her chest, her face ashen.</p>
<p>“We need to get them to the hospital.” Elio looks pale and worn as he crouches next to the two women, looking up at me with pleading eyes.</p>
<p>
  <i>'Please, don't hate me. Please, don't be angry for the things I put you through. I need you.'</i>
</p>
<p>“I get the car.” I mumble, already grabbing the keys from the sideboard, heading outside.</p>
<p>The car is old and small. It used to belong to Anchise but he's well past driving it, half-blind and crippled by Parkinson.</p>
<p>Elio and I carry his mum to the car, then help Mafalda. When they're both strapped in onto the back seat, Elio gets behind the wheel.</p>
<p>His hands are shaking and he's biting his lips as if to suppress tears.</p>
<p>“Let me.” I just say, holding the door open so he can get in the back as well to hug his mother, who's only half-conscious and babbling, trying to open the safety belt to climb out of the car. To flee, to search, to follow those impulses none of us can understand but that make perfect sense to her.</p>
<p>“Mother, please...” Elio presses out between gritted teeth. I'm acutely aware that he's reached the end of his rope.</p>
<p>I turn the key, slam in the gear, and start driving.</p>
<p>“Can you turn on the radio. Music usually calms her.” Elio has to shout to be heard over his mother's shrieks. When I look back at them in the mirror, I fear Mafalda is about to be sick while Annella is twisting in Elio's embrace, who has his eyes closed and is silently whispering something I can't make out.</p>
<p>I fumble for the radio, turn the small black knob. A husky voice fills the car:</p>
<p>
  <i>Ma nemmeno un motivo</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Che io ricordi per andare via </i>
</p>
<p>Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!</p>
<p>It's like 20 years ago...</p>
<p>“Careful!” Elio shouts.</p>
<p>I hit the brake and the car jumps, stutters, then stops.</p>
<p>There's a car crash in front of us. A taxi, another car, an ambulance.</p>
<p>I stare.</p>
<p>Everything goes silent.</p>
<p>A man is carried from the smashed taxi. Blond, as far as I can see... there's so much blood I can't be sure. The taxi driver sits by the road side, a cloth pressed to his face, frozen in shock. Police and passers-by stand around, discussing, gesticulating towards the wreckage...</p>
<p>Then a horn sounds from behind us and a Carabinieri is gesturing towards our car to move on.</p>
<p>I drive as if on autopilot until we arrive at the hospital in Crema.</p>
<p>The next few hours are washing over me like a gray fog, punctuated by the odd highlight. </p>
<p>A cup of bitter coffee in my trembling hand.</p>
<p>A bright corridor that smells sharply of disinfectant.</p>
<p>Elio slumped against my shoulder, too exhausted to cry...</p>
<p>Then he's gone and I'm alone.</p>
<p>I become aware of a woman sitting opposite me. She's vaguely familiar but I can't place her. Maybe on of the nurses who cared for Annella? Someone I knew in New York?</p>
<p>She's in her twenties, pale, with almost white-blond hair falling down to her waist. Her body is small, her features delicate. She actually kicks her feet like a child, her soles not touching the gray-green linoleum.</p>
<p>“Hello, Oliver.” She says.</p>
<p>Her voice... something seems very familiar about her voice.</p>
<p>“Hi.” I squint at her but she seems to slide out of focus. “How do you know my name?”</p>
<p>“Don't you remember me?”</p>
<p>“I'm sorry...” I suddenly feel cold. The corridor is darkening, lights flickering.</p>
<p>“But I'm Vimini.” She smiles at me. I shiver.</p>
<p>“Vimini?” She's been dead for years.</p>
<p>“So I see you're still with Elio. Does he know?”</p>
<p>“Know what?”</p>
<p>“Oh, come on, Oliver... I know what happened. You're not supposed to be here.” Her smile looks so sweet and innocent but her words cut deep.</p>
<p>“Neither are you.” I retort.</p>
<p>“Touche.” She slides off her chair, comes to sit next to me. I can't hear her steps. “I've met your son who never was. Thomas. In limbo.”</p>
<p>“Stop that!” I recoil from her frail body, but her hands grab me – strong and icy cold.</p>
<p>“He asks what happened. Why you abandoned him?”</p>
<p>I want to press my hands over my ears but sit frozen.</p>
<p>“I didn't-”</p>
<p>“Oh, you sacrificed so much for your precious Elio...”</p>
<p>“You have no idea-”</p>
<p>“But I have, Oliver. What is one son for the love of your life... and 3000 people saved on that day in New York. You shouldn't have done that, by the way...”</p>
<p>I feel suddenly angry. “Fuck off! What do you know? You weren't offered-”</p>
<p>“But I was. And I declined. I'm just allowed these few minutes here... to remind you. Fate is not to bargain with. Everything has its price.”</p>
<p>“I didn't ask for any of this.”</p>
<p>“So you would give it up?”</p>
<p>Vimini's face is morphing into someone else's. Micol's. And then my young son Tommy, never born...</p>
<p>“Dad?”</p>
<p>I shake my head, close my eyes.</p>
<p>When I open them again, I become aware of the cell phone in my hand.</p>
<p>“Dad?” It's Alex's voice. “What's going on?”</p>
<p>I have to take a deep breath before I can speak. “Your grandma's in hospital. I'm not sure if we can make it next week.” I look up and down the corridor but I'm all alone again.</p>
<p>“Oh no. Will she be okay?”</p>
<p>I shrug, but of course Alex can't see that. </p>
<p>“Oliver?” Someone sits down next to me and I turn away. But a hand reaches for my shoulder. I expect it to be Elio but when I look at the seat beside me it's Sami sitting there.</p>
<p>I almost drop the phone.</p>
<p>But he smiles at me, warm, benevolent.</p>
<p>“Thank you for all you've done. I knew you'd be good for my son but you're also the son-in-law me and Annella always wanted.”</p>
<p>I'm petrified by now. What is happening here?</p>
<p>“I hope you know that we always loved you.” Sami says, before he morphs into a man I've never seen before.</p>
<p>“If it wasn't for you I'd never seen my child. I had a doctor's appointment on September 11th . In those towers in New York. They told me I had terminal lung cancer. But I still lived a year to see my daughter born. Thank you.” The stranger is hugging me and it feels like a damp blanket enveloping me.</p>
<p>I must have started to cry at some point because my face is wet.</p>
<p>This is how Elio finds me, sobbing while seated in a too small plastic chair in a hospital corridor.</p>
<p>“Hey, love, what's going on?”</p>
<p>I just grab him, pull him against me. I have to touch him to feel his warmth, his breath, his heart beating fast against my ribs.</p>
<p>“I love you.” I breathe against him, crushing him against my body.</p>
<p>“Yeah... well...,” his hands skim through my hair. “Mum's been admitted. Mafalda's in ER, we can take her back home soon, it's just a broken wrist-”</p>
<p>“Elio, I...”</p>
<p>“Shh, I know. It's been a shock. Would you like some more coffee?”</p>
<p>“What would you say if I told you-”</p>
<p>He presses a cool finger against my lips.</p>
<p>“Don't. Lets just get coffee. Okay?”</p>
<p>I look at him for a long moment. There is something in his eyes... they are too big, too green... what has he seen? What did he hear me say?</p>
<p>But I just nod. </p>
<p>He takes my hand, his grip firm.</p>
<p>“I'd never let you go.” He says, almost too low for me to hear.</p>
<p>I stare at his profile. His face is set, determined. Beautiful.</p>
<p>And I wonder... not for the first time, I do wonder if he knows more than he lets on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The coffee helps to restore me somehow. We sit outside in the hospital garden in the sun and I slowly feel my bones warming up again, dispelling the cold that has sunken into them.</p>
<p>I must have had a bad dream. That's all.</p>
<p>When we take Mafalda back home her arm is in a sling. Elio is driving, carefully avoiding the potholes in the road. I stare out at the countryside at dusk, trees, fields and houses blurring in the fading light as we pass them by; usually so familiar, but right now eerie as phantasms.</p>
<p>As Mafalda has to lie down we have to prepare our own dinner, so it's just prosciutto, cheese, bread and red wine. While we eat, we watch a mindless TV show in the living room, sitting close to each other on the old green sofa. We don't talk much but pass back and forth the food like the long-time couple we are. It's still comparatively early when we fall into bed together, worn out by the events of the day.</p>
<p>I hold Elio close, his sweat-slick skin pressed against mine. The wind billows the curtains as a warm breeze washes over us.</p>
<p>“Have I ever told you how happy you made me over those past 20 years?” I ask him, trying to sound lighthearted.</p>
<p>He answers by softly punching my chest. I feel him grin against my shoulder. “You don't have to tell me with words.” He playfully bites my biceps.</p>
<p>I grab his chin, pull his face up against mine. Kiss him hard. Roll on top of him, pressing him down into the mattress. He spreads his legs for me, winds them around my middle, pulls me closer...</p>
<p>It's quick and dirty. There's no lube, just my spit, and I hear Elio cry out but he never lets go of me until I come inside him, feeling a telling wetness against my belly.</p>
<p>We kiss and kiss afterwards until he starts to giggle like a schoolboy. As if he was still seventeen.</p>
<p>“I love this, Oliver.” He sighs, and it's like a heavy weight lifted off my shoulders.</p>
<p>Contrary to my expectations, I do sleep. But I don't dream. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The light is very bright when I wake. As I open my eyes I only see white for a moment. Then two iridescent green eyes drift into view.</p>
<p>“Hey.” A weak smile flashes. Chapped lips press against mine, tasting of stale coffee.</p>
<p>“What time is it?” I ask.</p>
<p>“I've waited for you to wake up.” Elio whispers, his fingers stroking my face.</p>
<p>“Really?” I blink. I try to focus. There's gray in his hair that wasn't there last night...</p>
<p>When I try to raise my hand to touch him, I can't move. </p>
<p>What the hell...</p>
<p>“Slowly.” Elio kisses me again. “It'll take time. But there's no hurry...”</p>
<p>Something is wrong. My head hurts. I can't feel my legs.</p>
<p>“Elio...” Why does my voice sound so rough?</p>
<p>“Shh... it's all good now. You're back. You're with me. I never doubted you'd wake up again.”</p>
<p>“Elio... what...?” My vision is blurring. I feel my conscience slipping.</p>
<p>“I've been sitting here every day for two years, Oliver. Sleep now. I'll be here when you wake up again.”</p>
<p>His lips press against my forehead as I'm drifting off. I try to move my fingers, to hold onto his, but-</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Vimini sits in the sunlight on a patch of green grass.</p>
<p>Alex kisses a dark-skinned boy with dreadlocks on the villa's terrace.</p>
<p>Tommy runs through the orchard, humming an off-key tune.</p>
<p>Sami looks up from his desk, smiling. Annella is perched on the armrest of his battered chair and her husband squeezes her waist until she laughs, loud and clear.</p>
<p>Mafalda frowns while she carries a tray laden with fruit into the garden. </p>
<p>Micol sips her coffee at a small wrought-iron table in the shade of a peach tree.</p>
<p>And then Elio walks towards me, takes my hand, and leads me upstairs.</p>
<p>“Rest now.” He says as he helps me into bed. He lies beside me and strokes my hair, my chest. “Just rest. You're safe now. You're home.”</p>
<p>And I don't feel any pain.</p>
<p>I realize how afraid I've been. But not anymore. </p>
<p>I suddenly feel light. At ease.</p>
<p>I'm free.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I jerk awake. The sweaty sheet is clinging to my body. I'm alone in my narrow bed. The air in my small apartment is stuffy despite the open window.</p>
<p>I can hear the next-door neighbors yelling at each other though the thin, flaky wall. Outside, a car honks, a dog barks, children laugh and scream.</p>
<p>The radio in the kitchen is playing and the DJ announces this weeks number one: 'Keep Me Hanging On'. Kim's voice fills the air as I roll out of bed.</p>
<p>I think about boiling water on the stove to get some caffeine but decide the outcome is not worth the hustle. Instead, I put my head under the kitchen tab to fully wake up, staring at one of the huge cockroaches slowly crawling up the broken tiles on the wall, in no hurry to escape from view.</p>
<p>They are getting way too cocky. God, what a terrible pun.</p>
<p>A lingering feeling of loss won't leave me, not even as I crack open my first beer. I sit on the window sill, staring down into my street, littered with skeletal cars and rubbish. Children play between the rubble. It could be a post-apocalyptic world outside, maybe 1947 or 2017 instead of 1987.</p>
<p>When I turn my head  away my eyes come to stare at the calendar on my wall, a cheap bright thing the Chinese restaurant one block down gave me in January. One Month until I leave for Italy.</p>
<p>I feel suddenly exhausted. Maybe it's the heat.</p>
<p>Or the double life I've been leading.</p>
<p>I remember going to a bar the evening before, just after hanging up the phone on Micol. A nameless body next to mine, a cock in my hand. When I swallow my mouth still tastes stale and sour... I imagine I can still taste semen and retch, washing my sins down with more beer.</p>
<p>The answering machine is blinking. I crack another bottle open before pressing play. Micol's voice rings in my ears, too loud, reminding me of all my lies, my short-comings as a man.</p>
<p>“Hey, I just wanted to... I don't know... How are you, Olli? Call me.”</p>
<p>When I close my eyes I can see my future with her. A proper house in New England. Two sons. Holidays with my family. Respectability. Moderate success. A quiet life.</p>
<p>But in my dreams I've also seen an Italian boy, slim, dark-haired, hugely talented, cranky and acerbic, loving me with a passion that frightens me.</p>
<p>I'm at a crossroad, the way in front of me parting, each path leading into the unknown.</p>
<p>It terrifies me. Possibilities can be as daunting as the lack of them.</p>
<p>One night I even dreamed I died in a car crash. And the worst was not that I'd been dying – but the sense of leaving so much unfinished business behind. All my lies and regrets...</p>
<p>I climb out onto the fire escape where I've hidden a pack of cigarettes beneath a sad pot of wilting geraniums. I light one and squat down onto the iron steps, inhaling deeply.</p>
<p>I have so many dirty secrets. I try to hide them as best I can but I can't hide from myself.</p>
<p>I've seen what is waiting for me. And what I desire.</p>
<p>The worst is - it's my choice.</p>
<p>I don't even know if Elio is like I imagine him. We've just spoken briefly on the phone when I tried to call his dad about some details yesterday. But somehow the sound of his voice had resonated within me. As if I'd known him for a long time...</p>
<p>I think I know how he looks. How he smells and tastes. How his skin feels under my fingertips.</p>
<p>If I'm not careful, I might fall hard for him. Too hard.</p>
<p>Again, it's my choice. I can still cancel my trip.</p>
<p>There are different futures out there waiting for me –  nothing is determined yet. It's me who has to make some tough decisions.</p>
<p>I will inevitably hurt someone. I will lose someone.</p>
<p>But I also suddenly realize that this might be a chance. Something I didn't believe I'd be worthy of until yesterday, until I heard this boy's voice – warm, amused, full of excitement and promises. </p>
<p>A chance for happiness.</p>
<p>I don't imagine it will be easy.</p>
<p>When I stub out my cigarette I suddenly smell peaches. I think I hear a piano playing in the distance. A tune by Bach. Since when do I know Bach? And is that laughter? A voice calling my name?</p>
<p>The images fade like old sepia photographs: I think I saw an old house. Heard the ocean. There were trees, books, a metal bed...</p>
<p>I felt dark silky curls between my fingers... hard muscle, bony joints pressed against me in the dark.</p>
<p>A husky voice in my ear.</p>
<p>
  <i>“Oliver.”</i>
</p>
<p>I shake my head. Am I drunk?</p>
<p>When I look up at the sky, there's something sitting in the shadows, on a step above my head. It's too big to be a rat.</p>
<p>“Hey, there?” I whisper, reaching out. When the thing moves, I realize it's a black kitten, still clumsy on its tiny paws but probably hunger is making it trust me. It brushes its small head against my outstretched fingers, purring.</p>
<p>I can't take care of cat. I'm leaving for Europe in a month. But I still put a bowl of water and some shredded ham on a saucer outside on the fire escape. Just in case.</p>
<p>Back inside my apartment, I start looking for my passport. After locating it in my sock drawer, I make a list of what else I'll have to do: change money; sub-rent this apartment; maybe clean it up beforehand; get some summer clothes; learn at least a few Italian phrases...</p>
<p>I'm suddenly curious, excited even. What will happen in Italy?</p>
<p>Whatever waits for me, it will be something new.</p>
<p>I suddenly can't wait.</p>
<p>I open another beer, then lie on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I won't go out tonight. I'll be good.</p>
<p>I think I still have some pot in the box under my bed. I might smoke, just to relax...</p>
<p>I look over at my desk, at the pile of papers, my old typewriter.</p>
<p>Tomorrow.</p>
<p>I must have dozed off because I jerk awake from the spliff burning my fingers.</p>
<p>I taste copper in my mouth, then something sweet.</p>
<p>A sudden noise, like metal scraping on metal, makes me look around... I smell petrol, and there's a pain in my arms, my legs...</p>
<p>Something drags at my nerves, and anxiety flares up inside me for a second. I feel first hot then cold all over and seem to hear strange voices talking in my head.</p>
<p>Must be the pot fucking with me.</p>
<p>My heart is beating hard in my chest, reminding me that I'm alive. But my mouth is dry so I get up to get a glass of water.</p>
<p>It's not yet light, the strange twilight hour before sunrise. I feel kind of paranoid, as if someone's watching me.</p>
<p>Is there someone in my kitchen? I could swear I saw a fey shape leaning against the counter but when I switch the light on, it's gone.</p>
<p>My plane ticket to Italy is stuck with a magnet against the fridge. I briefly touch it before opening the door. Maybe I'll take another beer after all.</p>
<p>The sharp sound of my phone ringing disturbs the silence. I nearly drop the bottle as I reach for the receiver.</p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>“Hello... ugh... sorry, it's Elio. Elio Perlman. I... sorry, I'm not sure what time it is at your place but I had to call you to ask you a question.” </p>
<p>He sounds breathless. Young. Equally shy and determined.</p>
<p>“Hey, no problem. I was awake anyway.”</p>
<p>“Good. Great.”</p>
<p>I smile, take a swig of my beer. “Yes.”</p>
<p>We're both silent for a moment, then I hear him laugh. “Yeah, you know, it's actually about my dad, he wants to know...” And he launches off into a lengthy lecture about Heraclitus and some Greek sculptor and I just listen to his voice. He has a slight lisp that's adorable, and the tendency to form long-winding sentences that never seem to end.</p>
<p>I love listening to him and sit down onto the grimy kitchen floor, my back against the dirty wall while the sun rises outside. I never really got his question but we talk anyway, about everything and nothing. I tell him I'll go to Sicily before coming up to Crema and he gives me tips of where to go and what to see.</p>
<p>We talk and talk and I don't want to hang up. He sounds so familiar. Talking to him feels just natural.</p>
<p>I could happily do this for the rest of my life...</p>
<p>But suddenly, he says: “Hold on.” Covering the receiver with his hand, probably, but I still hear someone say something in Italian. Then he's back. “Sorry, gotta go. It was nice talking to you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Oliver.” I hear the smile in his voice.</p>
<p>“Elio.” I close my eyes, smiling as well.</p>
<p>He hangs up first.</p>
<p>My whole body is thrumming like an electric wire. It feels like I took a glimpse into my future.</p>
<p>I have to go to Italy. To meet Elio Perlman.</p>
<p>Because without knowing him I realize that he's my whole life. And he's waiting for me.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope this is not too cryptic. I'm aware that this might not answer all the questions. But some things can't be explained.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sooo... I haven't written more of this yet but I know where it's going and how it will end :)<br/>Please, tell me if you like my idea so far.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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